1. Gay rights and politics

• It is difficult to fight for the exact rights in this country.
• We shall project a more positive image of our Group and unite the power from other groups etc. to slowly gain the rights.
• We need some straight people to help gaining the rights – in a political climate such as in Malaysia, the better way to press for change is through gay friendly politicians.
• Attempts must be made to make our concerns known to the gay friendly politicians.

2. Unite Malaysian gay power

• Quantity is important in order to fight for the rights.
• We have enough people, but we are scattered in different places with different interests.
• We shall unite under one “rainbow” so that we are visible and powerful.
• We need to form a strong networking among different LGBT groups in Malaysia. There must be a group, accepted and supported by all, to represent the LGBT community in Malaysia.

3. Self-awareness and self-acceptance

• Fighting for gay rights politically is difficult for the time being.
• We shall focus on more practical thing, like education and outreach to promote self-awareness and self-acceptance.
• Before we can ask people to accept us, we should accept ourselves first.
• Environment, culture, background, society, etc. should not be overlooked.
• Activities should be directed to achieve this aim for the time being.
• Bearing in mind that different people will always be at a different level of self-acceptance, there is no need and not wise to wait for the whole community to change, before the more progressive members of the group can start making changes in manners that suit the level of comfort.

4. Outreach and promotion of the Group

• There are many people out there who do not know of our existence.
• We shall make ourselves more visible by telling friends, outreaching, etc.
• We shall encourage more people to join our activities.
• We shall contact them personally (those passive members).
• Suggestion: each council member can ‘adopt’ a number of silent members in the group and try to make friends with them.
• Different approaches shall be implanted in our outreached strategies.

5. Different approaches

• According to the history, the confrontational model used by the American in gay rights fighting is not suitable here.
• We shall do something like PT is doing, thru something “non-gay”, for example AIDS.

6. What you willing to do and how far can one go?

• The number is not really essential to create history; it depends solely on how far one willing to go to achieve his/her aims.
• Statistically speaking, change is unpredictable. It can occur in one day, needing only a handful of activists to press of the change; or it may never occur at all.

7. An era of change:

• We are blessed to be born in an era where marked social and political changes are seen everyday. The history that shaped our current situation allowed us to appreciate more our present time.
• At the same time, the highly volatile situation in the world is telling us that we have tremendous potential and great possibilities to shape our future based on equality and justice, and to make the world a better place.
• We are fortunate to be at a cross road where a monumental shift in world views towards different issues in the world is just around the corner, and that we can bear witness to it.
• It is important that we lend our voices towards the shifting of the world view so that our voices will be recorded in history.

Prepared by Keith.
Additional points by Darrel.