In the past one week, a furious debate was sparked by a letter reproduced by Tilted World with the permission of the author. The letter had allegedly claimed that remarks of a not LGBTQ-friendly nature were used on air by a radio DJ. The DJ was heard talking about his ex-girlfriend who, according to the letter, “turned lesbian”. The DJ had allegedly retold the anecdote in a humorous and derogatory manner, including the use of the word ’sick’ to refer to his ex-girlfriend.

Several readers have contested that the word ’sick’ was at all used and that they did not find the DJ’s remarks to be in any way pejorative. To follow up on the debate spanning 22 comments (when this was written), the editorial team at Tilted World wishes to respond to the issue collectively and to state our position in the ongoing discussion.

To be clear, Tilted World does not guarantee the accuracy of facts or necessarily agree with the sentiments expressed when posting articles, new stories, letters, and opinion pieces written by other individuals not on the editorial team. We try to provide the direct source of our information and knowledge, whenever possible, as well as attributing all information taken from websites, books, blogs, and movies to their original sources.

In short, the views expressed by individual authors do not necessarily represent the collective view of Tilted World. Tilted World has been created to serve as an online community space to allow different individuals to express their views concerning the lives, rights, politics, experiences, and identity of the queer, lesbian, bisexual, transgender, and gay community. In line with that goal, Tilted World encourages such discussions that go on in the “comments” section of every post. We do not censor comments, unless they are irrelevant or ad hominem attacks.

In light of the discussion on the DJ’s alleged remarks, Tilted World admits that we have not been able to obtain a clip of the DJ’s remarks. Referring to the discussion, however, there was definitely a call for and an attempt to locate the clip. Just because a clip of the alleged remarks cannot be found, we do not think that this issue should be closed, or that statements made by readers, should be retracted.

Regardless of whether a specific word has been used, the editorial team finds that the fact that several people were offended, and in turn, reacted negatively in response to the remarks made by the DJ reveal a greater issue to be examined and discussed. We view the issue not as one in which a slur or derogatory remark was targeted at the LGBTQ community, but as one in which an anecdote involving a queer woman was used as entertainment and was joked about on radio. The discussion highlights the responsibility public figures have and that they should be held accountable when making public announcements and remarks. The same way the public holds a minister accountable for what he says on the news and in newspapers, we should hold DJs, celebrities, academics, corporations, and journalists responsible for the remarks they make, directly or indirectly, in their work.

When remarks that belie any form of prejudice against another race, religion, sexuality, and gender identity are made in public without any sort of reprisal, such prejudice — no matter how insignificant or unintentional — is given the green light to proliferate. We feel that the published letter, despite its alleged factual inaccuracies, highlight the importance of the responsibility public figures have and address the issue that an individual was made into an “entertaining” and “newsworthy” object.

It is also of note to mention that while we condemn any all forms of discriminatory/disparaging remarks towards the LGBTQ community whose rights we advocate for, we want to be fair towards those people whom we (or our readers) criticize, and provide everyone their own space to speak for themselves. Tilted World has thus sent an email to the DJ letting him know that we are happy to publish any comments or views he has regarding the issue.

Per our published article of a letter written by one of our readers, Karen D’Cruz, on May 14, 2009, entitled ‘Gross Prejudices on Fly.fm’, we have taken it down at the request of the author.

The letter  expressed concern and outrage at anti-gay undertones in remarks made by Fly.fm DJ Prem while discussing the topic, “What you would not want to hear about your ex”.

Among other things, the letter claimed that while the DJ was elaborating on the rumors that his ex-girlfriend had turned gay, he had referred to the girlfriend as ‘sick’ and implied that though she was really pretty and he could not imagine why she ‘turned’ gay when she could have most men she wanted.

The author was concerned that the DJ was allowed to freely spread ‘prejudices and ignorance’ against the LGBT community on national radio and had sent the letter to multiple LGBT rights organization including Tilted World.

To be fair, none of the writers on Tilted World or Karen herself had actually heard the alleged comments on air. Subsequently, Tilted World has received a barrage of criticisms for posting the letter without fact-checking the contents of the letter. A few of the commentators have also contended that they listened to the relevant segment but did not hear tthe DJ makign any anti-gay comments.

To this, Tilted World would like to issue a public apology for posting the letter without first making attempts to contact Fly.fm directly over the matter.

The letter has since been taken down, as requested by author herself. While Tilted World has pressed her for the reasons of her decision, she has chosen to remain silent.

Post-investigation revealed that the author and the author’s source can only verbally verify their claims. I have since contacted the author’s source, asking her to recount what she actually heard on the radio that day. She has since replied me and confirmed that she did hear the alleged statements made by the DJ.

We are doing our best to obtain additional information regarding the radio show. To date, we contacted the radio show requesting for an audio clip of the segment. In addition, Tilted World has written to the DJ, asking him to clarify the allegations. Tilted World is presently still waiting for responses from both parties. Thus, the question of whether Prem had actually made the alleged remarks remains unsolved.

A potentially libellous picture of Prem with the caption ’spiteful ex-boyfriend’ was also posted together with the letter, but has since been taken down as well. As the person responsible for putting up that picture, I apologize for my inappropriate action.

In addition, while Tilted World will not censor any of the non-spam comments on the blog in line with its non-censorship policy, I would like to say sorry to for labelling some of the dissenting commentators as Prem’s friends in my comments on this post. I am barely of voting age yet, I have my lapses in maturity but I am also learning.

Bottomline, Tilted World retains its collective stance against homophobic remarks published or broadcast in the media as well as remains an outlet for the Malaysian LGBT community to voice their opinions and concerns.

As already elucidated in an earlier post, ‘What They say On Air’, the main focus at hand, is the discriminatory policy or lack thereof of national public radio stations.

Regardless of whether the DJ had used particular words or phrases as contended by some of our commentators, the main point of contention is a larger one – the fact that an anecdote on a person’s sexual orientation was made to be entertainment on radio.

And though I personally did not hear that particular episode, I am certain that this is not the first instance that Fly.fm’s responsibility in maintaining gender sensitivity has been questioned. I can bear witness to hearing terms like ‘not normal’ being used by DJs to describe homosexuality, phrases like “that’s so gay” being flung about as if the word ‘gay’ was some petty, belittling term, or phrases which reek of homosexual undertones, such as lyrics in Katy Perry’s song ‘I Kissed A Girl’ being censored while the sexually explicit lyrics of other songs remain untouched on Fly.fm.

And of course, this matter extends to all mass media in Malaysia. Whether it is in Astro airing shows that screen out the words ‘gay’ and ‘lesbian’ (corrected), local television programs vilifying transsexuals or local publications poking fun at ‘effeminate men’, local media organizations have time and again failed to be responsible in according respect to persons of different sexual orientations.

As such, Tilted World is looking into inquiring local media organizations – beginning with Fly.fm – for non-discrimination policies in the near future.

As for members of the LGBT community who feel that Tilted World has failed to serve as a credible advocacy site for the community, they are always welcomed to join the team as contributors and improve the site. Tilted World started as a community project – all contributors are full-time students/employees who free-lance for the site, and at least half the team are based outside Malaysia - and will remain so. As such, we face genuine time and resource constraints in administering and monitoring the site, and we will gladly recruit new contributors who think that can help the site serve the community better.

If there is one thing I have learned from this episode, it is that – and I think this applies to everyone – you can lose blog readers. You can lose radio listeners. You can lose anything and everything but you cannot lose morally.

Sincerely, Chong Yong Wei Gabrielle

Written on behalf of the Tilted Team

[ corrected: Astro did air shows that censored the words "gay" and "lesbian", but the censoring was done in Hong Kong; Astro bought the rights to the show (corrected again -- a Star PR representative claimed --without investigating first-- they "might" have censored it, hence confusion, but Astro was the one responsible after all) -- Lainie]