DANIA

Dania was born with a penis and because of that she was considered or 'forced' by social construction to consider herself a man. Since the age of 3, Dania felt that she was different from her male friends. At that time, he certainly didn't have any awareness of what gender and sex were, whether gender and sex were the same or different things and so on. All Dania realized was that she was attracted to feminine clothes and had a different bodily experience from men.

Dania then grows into the figure that society has shaped for her, namely that she must always look masculine like a man. She then began to dare to express her femininity in her twenties, which started with how she dressed.

Being involved in the world of art, Dania's feminine clothing style is celebrated as a form of individual freedom in art. People in the artistic world began to accept his identity. However, there are still some people who are unable to understand Dania's true gender expression. They then labeled Dania's behavior as crossdressing or cross-dressing, a heteronormative term aimed at people who dress differently from their assigned gender identity. The word flash in Dania's case means that Dania as a man is dressed as a woman.

Dania doesn't like the term crossdressing that is attached to it. However, he never really forbade people from giving him certain terms. He considers this a compromise with the social construction that has been perpetuated so far. On the one hand, keeping quiet about this is also an effort to hide her identity, in this case, her true gender identity, a woman.

In the end, Dania realized that she was a woman when she began to be exposed to gender diversity narratives. The struggle he underwent was a long and lonely road. Dania chose several people in her life as safe spaces, so that she could comfortably come out (coming out - after coming in) to them. One of the people who is considered a safe space is Gusti Arirang, his band partner in Tashoora who is now his wife.

Apart from that, he also had to accept the fact that his parents had difficulty accepting his gender expression. In fact, according to her, rather than having to force each other's views, Dania hopes to get to know each other more deeply between herself and her parents.

On her birthday, September 21 2021, Dania finally came out as a trans woman to the wider public via her Instagram account. Until now, Dania and Gusti are still partners and love each other.