Dede Oetomo

Dede Oetomo (born 1953) is a campaigner for LGBT rights in Indonesia and an expert on gender issues in East Java. He pursued postgraduate studies at Cornell University in Ithaca, New York. Whilst there, he founded Lambda Indonesia, a gay support group and later set up GAYa Nusantara.

Oetomo is a member of the People's Democratic Party (known as PRD) and has stood in elections. As a student and teacher of linguistics, Dede Oetomo is the author of Beginning Indonesian Through Self-Instruction. He is currently national coordinator of Gaya Nusantara and is an active member of the Asia-Pacific Council of AIDS Service Organisations. He is an Ashoka Fellow and was a recipient of the Felipa de Souza Award in 1998.

Early life Dede Oetomo was born into a Chinese-Indonesian family in 1953 in Pasuruan, East Java. He describes his family as Westernized; his parents spoke Dutch, and Oetomo speaks Indonesian and Javanese. He came out to his parents as gay at the age of 20. He received a second grant in 1984 to work with the Modern Indonesia Project at Cornell. The project, established in the early 1950s by Professor George McTurnan Kahin and Professor John M. Echols, engages in Indonesian area studies. Oetomo has had a large impact on the LGBT movement in Indonesia. His work has helped to produce specifically Indonesian gay and lesbian identities in Indonesia, which he defines as "more or less as they are in the contemporary West".

Lambda Indonesia was started by Oetomo in 1982, whilst he was still at Cornell, as a newsletter providing a forum where people could write letters to receive advice about gay issues. It was one of the first gay organisations in Asia. Lambda was discontinued in 1986 and Oetomo founded Gaya Nusantara. However, there was also increasing repression and Oetomo criticised funding groups such as the Ford Foundation, UNDP and USAID for not doing more to help LGBT rights in Indonesia.

The post-Suharto era in Indonesia began in 1998 and Oetomo stood for election several times representing the People's Democratic Party (known as PRD). He also unsuccessfully applied to run the National Commission on Human Rights.

Gaya Nusantara Gaya Nusantara is an LGBT rights organisation set up by Oetomo, which focuses upon human rights education, sexual health including HIV/AIDS awareness and fighting sexual discrimination. In 1998, the group pressured for LGBT rights alongside other organisations such as Arus Pelangi.