SEED Malaysia collaborates with partners and the community to create informative and accurate content on transgender issues in Malaysia. Our materials are community-focused, aiming to raise awareness, identify common concerns, and foster solidarity among the transgender community. Our core strategy includes providing a safe space, supporting sustainable livelihoods, advocating for health, welfare, and rights, and raising funds to enhance SEED services for the community.
The Trans Thrive Project, a collaboration between the Asia Pacific Transgender Network and SEED Malaysia, is breaking new ground by documenting violence against transgender people in Malaysia - something the government has never formally counted. In a country where trans and gender-diverse individuals face daily threats of harassment, assault, discrimination, and forced “conversion therapy,” official data remains virtually non-existent.
This community-led initiative is changing that by giving trans Malaysians the tools to record and share their own experiences. For the first time, a nationwide snapshot of anti-trans hate crimes is emerging - built by and for the community it represents.
This pilot study has shed light on the presence of “identity conversion practices” in Malaysia - efforts aimed at reshaping individuals’ sexual orientation, gender identity, religion, or ethnicity. The findings suggest that these practices are often reinforced by legal structures and institutional norms, with digital platforms sometimes amplifying conservative narratives.
While the issue remains under-explored in mainstream policy discourse, the study highlights the need for thoughtful engagement, improved support systems, and inclusive public education to ensure that all Malaysians can navigate identity with dignity and safety.
This NHRI study is to identify the types of discrimination faced specifically by transgender persons based in Kuala Lumpur and Selangor and understand how their basic rights have been violated.
The Commission decided to focus on transgender persons due to the visibility of their gender expression, exposing them to a greater number of discriminatory practices.
Transgender community faces overwhelming health disparities and inequities in Malaysia. This bilingual document serves as a guide and reference for healthcare
professionals in the provision of trans-specific primary health care in Malaysia.
It details and provides practical advice pertaining to the assessment and management of transgender patients who seek treatment at health care centres.
Malaysia's country snapshots feature a summary of the key findings of the research and offer a preliminary reflection on the driving factors and actors behind conversion therapy practices in each of the four countries.
They also present recommendations for relevant legal, policy, and programmatic change to address conversion therapy practices and provide protection to trans and gender diverse individuals against these harmful interventions.
Trans people in Malaysia face systemic and widespread stigma and human rights violations. Muslim trans people are subject to arrests, harassment and assault from federal, state, and local Islamic religious authorities, and often avoid reporting these incidents for fear that the police will not protect them.
Due to limitations in the separation of state and religion discussed below, state-enacted Islamic law affects the lives of non-Muslim trans people as well, with all trans Malaysians regardless of religion being unable to access gender affirmation surgery and obtain legal gender recognition.
The spotlight report highlights the systemic discriminations and prejudice experienced by trans and gender diverse persons in Malaysia and sheds light on the government’s lackluster response to include trans and gender diverse persons in its 2030 Agenda implementation strategies.
Transgender persons experience gross violations of their fundamental human rights, including violence, harassment and arbitrary arrests from law enforcement authorities, exclusion from healthcare and education systems due to the lack of legal gender recognition, discrimination in the employment sector, and routine dehumanisation and demonisation by the media that perpetuates gender stereotyping and transphobia.
Due to the long-standing systemic and institutional trans prejudice and exclusion from social, economic and legal protection mechanisms, transgender citizens have been experiencing extreme social marginalisation and economic vulnerability.