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Shinta Ratri

Biography

Shinta Ratri, affectionately known to her local community as ‘Ibu Shinta’, was born on October 15, 1967 in Bantul, Indonesia. Shinta came from a merchant family, and she is one of nine children. Growing up, she always knew she was a female, even though she was born a male. That innate feeling inspired her to join the girl’s sports team in school. Shinta’s family accepted her as a waria and did not make her leave the home.1 It is not uncommon in Indonesia for waria women to be cast out by their families, so this was a privilege for Shinta. Shinta went to college at the Faculty of Biology at Gadjah Mada University, but did not earn a degree. She had a jewelry business of making copper jewelry for wedding ceremonies and had this business throughout her life.2

Shinta Ratri was a waria (indigenous term that could be translated to ‘transgender woman’ in Bahasa Indonesia). Shinta founded in 2008 alongside two other waria and ran the Pesentran Waria Al-Fatah, a Qur’an school and boarding house exclusively for waria women, citing discomfort of waria going to the mosque in gender segregated spaces. Some mosques would even turn transgender people away. Most religious institutions in Indonesia will segregate men and women so that leaves little options for waria to find communal spaces to pray and receive religious education. From 2010-2016, Shinta was the chair of the Yogyakarta Waria Union.3 In 2014, after the passing of the original founders, including founder member Maryani, she moved the school to her home. She inherited the house from her grandmother and that gave her. Her goal was to create an inclusive religious space for queer and transgender people.4

Not only does the school provide a place for safe religious learning and expression, but it provides holistic services and community building for waria women. They run weekly sessions for skills training so that waria women can build the capacity to raise their standard of living.5 They hosted a medical clinic with over 76 attendees to receive medical care. They are also a local center for the national Transgender Care program, an initiative with the Indonesia Family Planning Association.6 The school is embedded in the local community and presents opportunities for services that address the diverse needs of transgender people in Indonesia. Shinta valued religious expression and freedom for all transgender people, she was very actively engaged in interfaith work. She was involved in interfaith work and encouraged trans women to organize their own celebrations during Christmas.7 At the school there are also Protestant and Catholic women, and their religious observances are also respected and uplifted.

The school helped waria women learn Qur’an, formal prayers (salat), and Islamic concepts that they did not have previous education. Waria women, because of the common separation from families, do not have the same access to religious education. Shinta has said there are many waria who do not know how to perform formal prayers or how to read the Qu’ran because they have been excluded from religious spaces.8

Shinta envisioned infrastructure that would provide holistic support to trans women on a larger scale. She has said she would like to see support for elderly trans women, making sure they are being taken care of and are provided nutritious meals and enough money to have housing. The school tries to reunite the families of elderly waria so that their families can take care of them in their old age and prepare them for death and arrange burial rituals.

In February 2016, the school was closed due to threats of violence from conservative groups. 2016 marked a significant uptick in queerphobic and transphobic sentiment in Indonesia, and conservative groups targeted Shinta and the school. They were able to quietly reopen in June 2016 during Ramadan as Shinta believed it was ‘a good time for worship”. The year they reopened, they received two goats as a donation for Eid al-Adha. The community continued to support them in spite of the rise of anti-queer sentiment in Indonesia.9

Shinta received quiet support from local leaders and scholars for her work with transgender women. She was regularly visited by local professors from Islamic universities and they would express gratitude for her giving Islamic guidance to waria. An influential Islamic organization in Indonesia also supported her work for the school.10 There was communal support for the school and for Shinta’s work, respecting the lives of waria women and validating Shinta as a religious and community leader.

In 2019, Front Line Defenders awarded her with an Asia Regional Award for Human Rights Defenders At Risk for her work in Indonesia.11 This award was established in 2005 to honor the activists who advocate for LGBTQ rights often in unsafe environments, risking their own safety to do the work. In 2022, she was awarded the Casa Asia Award in the category of Diversity and Sustainable Development for her work in Indonesia for the LGBTQ+ Community. Casa Asia is a diplomatic body of European government institutions based in Barcelona focused on maintaining ties between Spain and Asia.12 Shinta is globally recognized for her commitment to enriching the lives of queer and transgender Indonesians and educating allies about their lives.

In a documentary for Vice’s series Transnational, Shinta, her school, and her students are highlighted for their commitment to building an intentional community as well as spaces for transgender people. In this documentary, while doing a Qur’an lesson with the Vice representative Rana Thamrin, also a trans woman, Shinta imparted on her this wisdom: “God has decreed that everyone should read. It’s not that we just read but know everything. In this world, it’s not only men and women who exist. There’s us. Us trans people exist as well. The Prophet Muhammad, who couldn’t read words, was told to read. ‘Iqra’ Why? Because they’re not told to read like this [she gestures to the pages of the Qur’an ] but to read the environment, to read society, to read politics, to read this and that. Because something that describes humans shouldn’t just see what the eyes see, but also everything.”13

Shinta died at the age of 60 from a heart attack on February 1, 2023.14 She will be remembered as a staunch advocate, humble leader. Her work exemplifies the importance of prioritizing the most marginalized amongst you, giving them spaces to thrive and asking the rest of the world to join.

1 Seth Mydans, “Shinta Ratri, Fighter for Transgender Rights in Indonesia, Dies at 60”, The New York Times, 2023. https://www.nytimes.com/2023/02/25/world/asia/shinta-ratri-dead.html
2 Haris Firdause, “For Trans Women’s Religious Right”, Kompas, 2022.
https://www.kompas.id/artikel/shinta-ratri-for-trans-womens-religious-right
3 Ibid.
4 Carol Kuruvilla, “Indonesia's Transgender Muslims, Known As Waria, Celebrate Ramadan”, Huffpost, 2015. https://www.huffpost.com/entry/indonesias-transgender-muslims-celebrate-ramadan-photos_n_55a53543e4b0ecec71bd0ced
5 Haris Firdause, “For Trans Women’s Religious Right”, Kompas, 2022.
https://www.kompas.id/artikel/shinta-ratri-for-trans-womens-religious-right.
6 Krithika Varagur, “Indonesia’s Only Transgender Islamic School Quietly Running Again”, VOA News, Accessed via the Wayback Machine, 2017.
https://web.archive.org/web/20210709181658/https://www.voanews.com/east-asia-pacific/indonesias-only-transgender-islamic-school-quietly-running-again
7 Amir Alfikar, “Shinta Ratri, champion of inclusive theology, dies at 60”, Indonesia at Melbourne, The University of Melbourne, 2023.
8 Krithika Varagur, “Indonesia’s Only Transgender Islamic School Quietly Running Again”, VOA News, Accessed via the Wayback Machine, 2017. https://web.archive.org/web/20210709181658/https://www.voanews.com/east-asia-pacific/indonesias-only-transgender-islamic-school-quietly-running-again
9 Ibid.
10 Kyle Knight, “The Piety of Shinta Ratri”, The Los Angeles Review of Books, Human Rights Watch, 2016. https://www.hrw.org/news/2016/08/11/piety-shinta-ratri
11 2019 Front Line Defenders Asia Regional Award - Shinta Ratri, Indonesia.
12 MONDRAGON Corporation, “The "Casa Asia Awards 2022" recognize MONDRAGON”, TULankide, 2022.
13 Vice News, Inside Indonesia's Only Quran School for Trans Muslims, Transnational, 2022. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BN_yIxQABOA&list=PLw613M86o5o7ZLqaoBg5knryHuN4jwwHQ&index=10
14 Seth Mydans, “Shinta Ratri, Fighter for Transgender Rights in Indonesia, Dies at 60”, The New York Times, 2023. https://www.nytimes.com/2023/02/25/world/asia/shinta-ratri-dead.html

(This biographical statement written by Soaad Elbahwati. Photo credit: Front Line Defenders https://www.frontlinedefenders.org/en/profile/shinta-ratri)

Biography Date: August 2025

Tags

Islam | Islam (Progressive) | Trans activism | Indonesia | Women and Religion

Citation

“Shinta Ratri | Profile”, LGBTQ Religious Archives Network, accessed August 22, 2025, https://lgbtqreligiousarchives.org/profiles/shinta-ratri.

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