East Timor, Asia


East Timor is Asia's newest and probably poorest country. Indonesia relinquished control of the territory and East Timor became the first new sovereign state of the twenty-first century on May 20, 2002. It's just south of the Equator, has the usual requisite tropical landscape of palm trees, mountains and sometimes sandy beaches. It comprises the eastern half of the island of Timor and for tourists it's also expensive. The gay 'scene' in Dili is small, slow and mostly quiet. A few men are more or less open about their sexuality and a much greater number of "hidden" men, who take what chances are offered. There is very little knowledge about HIV, other sexually transmitted infections and safer sex.

 

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Gay Life in East Timor

| March 3rd, 2012 | Comments Off

Introduction East Timor (Timor L’este) is unique in southeast Asia–it is Roman Catholic, standing nearly alone among thousands of Islamic Indonesian islands (other than the Philippines, which is also catholic). But such a distinction does not make it any easier for LGBT citizens to live their personal lives. Male and female “gay life in East Timor”‘ is legal. There was a clause against discrimination based on sexual orientation included in the original draft of the Timorese Constitution but it was voted out by 52 out of 88 MPs before the constitution took effect in 2002. A modest effort has been made to bring support to the LGBT community with the creation of a website called Gay Timor (http://gaytimor.blogspot.com/) but a recent visit in March 2012 shows no activity there since September 2011 so one is left wondering about its viability. In Timor L’este it’s a little easier to be a

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