Ger’s story strikes the historical record like lightning in the middle of a dark night.
The first lesbian to be on the cover of a lesbian magazine in the USA is… an Indonesian woman?
It reads like fiction. A fantastical history dreamt up to excite and console us in the current day. But, incredibly, there she is, sitting casually on her bed and looking slightly off frame, presumably at her friend Rora.
It would turn out she was also looking at hundreds of lesbian women across the United States, the readership of The Ladder. Women she would never meet, but who connected to her story from a world away — a story of isolation and longing, and ultimately of love and friendship.
But who was she? And what were the circumstances that would lead to her being on the cover of a magazine half a world away?
Since Queer Indonesia Archive learnt of Ger's existence, we have tried to find the answers to these questions. Through the help of people all over the world we have pulled together the most complete picture we could.
This exhibition explores the life of Ger van Braam through a series of letters between her and Barbara Gittings — then editor of the lesbian magazine The Ladder. Beginning in 1963 and ending in the final months of 1964, the letters trace a powerful period of transition both for Indonesia and Ger herself. We share them in the hope of contributing, in our own small way, to Ger's wish to have her story reach others and to help them avoid the isolation she once faced.
To bring Ger’s words to life, we wanted to connect her to the communities of lesbian, bisexual and queer women in Indonesia today. To do so we invited community members to read her letters aloud and bring their own voices to her words. We also invited former members of the US’ first national lesbian rights organisation, Daughters of Bilitis, and the Lesbian Herstory Archive to bring the words of Barbara Gittings to life. Ger and Barbara's friendship was the bridge between two worlds, and both of them were fighting to expand the possibilities open to all women. You will find the video and voice recordings of these remarkable women throughout the exhibition.
We thank Saskia, Kai, Paula, Rebecca, Diah, Joan, Indira, Lette and Yuli for your contributions. Without you this exhibition would not have been possible.
The first letter in our exhibition was written by Barbara to Ger in response to The Ladder publishing a short story written by Ger, titled A Dope.
First published by the Daughters of Bilitis in 1956, The Ladder was the first nationally distributed lesbian publication in the US, and the primary publication and method of communication for the pioneering lesbian rights organisation.
Daughters of Bilitis used a chapter-based system to allow for groups to meet and respond to local issues on the ground. The founding group was based in San Francisco, with subsequent chapters forming in New York City, Los Angeles, Chicago and Rhode Island. Barbara Gittings was a founding member of the New York City chapter and its president from 1958-1961.
After her leadership term, Barbara would go on to become the editor of The Ladder from 1963-1966. It is through correspondence with Barbara that Ger builds her personal connection to the magazine.
Barbara Gittings was a key figure in the gay and lesbian liberation movement in the US. She was an outspoken advocate and activist, and alongside her lifelong partner Kay Tobin, had a profound impact on the successes of the US gay and lesbian liberation movement throughout the 1960s and ’70s. For those interested to learn more about Barbara and her impact, please see the further reading section at the end of this exhibition.
Significantly for this exhibition, Barbara was a trained librarian with a keen eye for documentation and record keeping. The letters in this exhibition were found in the collection of her papers currently held at the New York City Library.
Ger's first story in The Ladder reflects her fascination with airports and those who fly. The story centres around a Pan Am flight attendant intervening in the life of a shy artist who is longing for genuine love. The story’s themes are evident throughout Ger’s writing and reflect her own struggles, but also act as a marker of how much she changes over the following few years.
In contrast to Barbara's short and somewhat formal reply, Ger's response is an outpouring of feeling. Her personal story shared in the letter exemplifies the intensity of pressure placed on her to marry and to conform to societal expectations. It also highlights how education and economic independence enable people to break from cultural and social norms. Her ability to leave her husband and be "cut off" from her family is grounded in her education and ability to find her own work and place to live.
Her evocative description of her intense isolation is a powerful reminder that the very concept of homosexuality was often so unspoken that people did not have ways to conceptualise or communicate their own desires. The challenge to make sense of our desires when we do not yet have the words to express them, or of how to imagine a way of living we have never seen, can feel daunting or insurmountable. For Ger, the answers to this challenge and the awakening of her own reimagining of what is possible came in the form of novels.
In both her short story A Dope and within this letter, Ger highlights the novel The Price of Salt by Patricia Highsmith as a moment of revelation. Published in 1952 under the pseudonym Claire Morgan, this romance novel was one of the few books about lesbian romance at the time that did not end in tragedy. English language pulp fiction about gay or lesbian romances were popular throughout the 1950s, but conventionally these novels always ended tragically — with isolation, murder, suicide.
Conversely, The Price of Salt offered readers the ability to imagine a possible future, rather than destruction. It also presented both characters as abiding by feminine gender conventions, challenging notions of lesbians as ‘gender inverts’ and the butch-femme trope that dominated most representation at the time. The novel would go on to be republished under the title Carol, and a film of the same name was released in 2015. The film did not have a theatrical release in Indonesia but LGBTIQ+ communities in the country did hold screenings to allow local communities to engage with this reimagining of the novel.
As Ger highlights, the ability of people in Indonesia to find any materials with same-sex intimacy or romantic content was severely limited, while all materials that did exist represented Westerners. This struggle continues today with ongoing censorship and suppression of any stories that represent LGBTIQ+ communities in Indonesia.
Barbara's reply comes several months after Ger sent her letter. Having not heard back from Barbara, Ger sent a collection of her artwork to The Ladder (unfortunately we have not been able to locate any of these works).
Barbara seems at a loss for words in how to respond to Ger's outpouring. She begins by describing the ways in which Ger's letter served as a reminder of the situation of lesbian women around the world, rather than the national American context, which was the main focus of the Daughters of Bilitis. Sensing the impact that Ger's story may have on other readers, Barbara asks permission to publish Ger's words in a section of their own in The Ladder.
With her requests to Ger in both her initial letter and the following one, Barbara evokes an ethos of working in support of a global movement and solidarity. It’s important to note that at the time of their correspondence, the Stonewall Riots and the US gay and lesbian liberation movement had not yet eventuated. Prior to the radical shift brought about by Stonewall, the existing movement in the US often utilised the term 'homophile'. In an attempt to avoid the clinical implications of sexual pathology associated with the word homosexual, the term emphasised love (-phile) in place of 'sexual'. Although a relatively unknown term now, at the time it was strongly associated with organisations and individuals advocating for the acceptance of homosexuality in wider society.
In her reply, Barbara also lets Ger know that her subscription to The Ladder has been renewed by an anonymous donor. At the time an annual subscription to the magazine was US$4. Although Ger was from a wealthy family, in the 1960s Indonesia was experiencing a period of rapid inflation, with an average inflation rate of over 100% — this profoundly impacted citizens’ ability to buy anything from abroad.
Barbara's letter is also reflective of the shifting politics of the lesbian movement within America at the time. She expresses her desire to promote greater visibility and to showcase photos of community members on the cover of The Ladder — rather than illustrations or other visual art.
At the end of the letter, her fleeting reference to her partner Kay as her "friend" demonstrates that even within private correspondence, long-term partnerships were often still placed within a frame of plausible deniability.
In this letter Ger appears in a wholly new light. Casting off the heavy isolation of her initial letter, Ger responds with a vibrancy and energy to the requests from Barbara. It seems that in the months after writing her first letter, Ger has overcome her isolation and gone from being alone to being someone with a girlfriend, and a few gay and lesbian friends.
She is also remarkably open about her family and heritage. We know now that Ger was born in Batavia (modern day Jakarta) on August 31, 1927. She was the daughter of Lucie Anthonio and Johannes Marius van Braam III, both of mixed Indonesian-European heritage.
Ger’s youth was marked by conflict and large-scale political and social transition. By the age of 23, she had witnessed the final years of Dutch colonial domination; the Japanese invasion and occupation of Indonesia; the declaration of Indonesian independence in 1945; and the subsequent Dutch war for the recolonisation of Indonesia. This near decade of war and conflict finally came to an end on December 27, 1949, with the Dutch acceptance of Indonesian sovereignty.
Indonesia’s independence had only been accepted by the Netherlands for 14 years before the time of this letter. After the end of the Dutch invasion of Indonesia in 1949, diplomatic relations between the two countries began to stabilise. In the early 1950s, members of the public with documented Dutch heritage were invited to immigrate to the Netherlands as they were legally seen as Dutch citizens. Ger chose to remain in Indonesia, the country of her birth and the only one she had known, receiving her Indonesian nationality on November 12, 1951.
Ger describes how the question of which nationality to accept has split her family across two continents. As all Ger’s siblings are sisters, many of the decisions around citizenship are based on the nationality of the men they have married, and so, despite never having visited Holland before, three of her sisters have already moved there.
She also speaks briefly of upper class "women's clubs" as sites of situational lesbian activity with a casualness that seems to assume a certain level of normalcy. These brief comments, written in passing, are a reminder of how little we know of the unspoken norms of that time, and how little insight we have into the private worlds of those in decades past.
The end of Ger's isolation begins with a Shell flight attendant named Rora (who turns out to be the inspiration for her story in The Ladder). Rora helps Ger to overcome her isolation and alerts her to a world of gay men living in plain sight within her social class. Ger describes her shock at the men’s gender nonconformity, while in turn they seem shocked at Ger and Rora’s gender conformity. Although initially excited, Ger describes her disappointment with the men and their obsession with sex — highlighting her own desire for a homosexual romance that conforms with the romantic and monogamous expectations of the time.
She also begins a romance. Meeting a (then married) woman named Hetty at a party, Ger falls quickly in love. Although with her husband and son at the time, Hetty's feelings are mutual, and she proceeds to leave her husband and give up custody of her child. The intensity in which both Ger and Hetty are willing to upend their lives to be together is staggering in its speed and overtness.
Having broken her isolation, Ger states her desire to leave Indonesia has ended. Instead, she affirms her commitment to helping break the isolation of others who, like herself, may be living in isolation in Indonesia.
Ger follows her letter to Barbara with another just three days later, expanding on the details of her relationship with her family. She details her reunion with them after a year of self-isolation in response to the social fallout from leaving her marriage.
Reconnection with her family is significant for Ger’s social standing, as they benefited from significant economic and social privilege under the Dutch colonial system. People of (legitimised) mixed Asian and European heritage, known as Eurasians or Indos, were considered part of the European legal class within the racially segregated colonial system of the Dutch East Indies. European status was passed from the father to his (legitimised) children regardless of the amount of genetic heritage.
The privileges that gave Ger access to education and economic security also made her and her family targets of both Japanese forces and anti-Dutch violence during the two wars that framed her transition to adulthood.
These privileges and her internalisation of the colonial race/class system are made explicit in her description of an extraordinary exchange between herself and a French woman visiting Indonesia. After sitting down with Ger, the French woman admitted to her that she and her friends were currently taking part in sex tourism, visiting Bali to seduce and engage with local women. To Ger, the notion of being intimate with the “lower classes” is unimaginable, but for the French woman, it is a key feature of the allure of Bali. This is indicative of the role Bali played in the Western imagination as an exotic and erotic paradise — the embodiment of which being the topless Balinese woman that was heavily promoted throughout the 20th century in Europe.
Echoing the plot of her initial story A Dope, here a foreigner is offering entry into a particular type of lesbian social world, but rather than accepting, Ger quietly rebuffs the French woman’s interest and is simply amused and intrigued by the brazenness of her language and approach. Notable too is the use of the word “Ducky”, a British slang term that had been incorporated into Polari, a dense form of British gay slang that informed many language associations of homosexuality in the mid-20th century.
Ger's letter also explains her theory that the intensity of same-sex social worlds in Indonesia would in turn be leading to a large number of homosexual encounters. This has subsequently been detailed in a significant amount of anthropological research in the country, and is revealing of how little we actually know about same-sex relationships and love in Indonesia throughout the 20th century.
In the sixth letter, Barbara thanks Ger for sending a souvenir, which becomes part of her collection of trinkets (you might notice she uses an outdated term for Indigenous people of the Arctic region). After being published in The Ladder, Ger’s initial letter about her loneliness and isolation in Indonesia resonated with many lesbians around the world, and is one of the magazine’s most commented on segments. This unprecedented interest in Ger’s story prompts Barbara to propose that Ger’s other letters be published, and to update readers on her life, including the story of Rora and Hetty. Most significantly, Barbara wonders whether Ger is interested in having her photo published on the cover of The Ladder.
As the magazine’s readership is a secluded niche far from mainstream media, Ger can afford to be quite open while still maintaining anonymity in her daily life. Her photo can be published on the cover of the magazine as no one who knows her personally is likely to encounter it. The distance between Ger’s location in Indonesia and The Ladder’s US base creates another layer of anonymity. This situation —where a person can be famous within a subculture while remaining separate from this identity in their daily life — is increasingly vanishing with rising internet and social media use. The circulation of printed media is easier to control, making it less likely for queer publications to leak outside their intended audience.
It is also interesting to note that the one book Barbara mentions in her letter is Simone de Beauvoir’s The Second Sex. First published in 1949 under its French title Le Deuxiéme Sexe, it was a controversial publication banned by the Vatican and Spain during the time of this letter and later heralded as one of the inspirations for second wave feminism.
Ger enthusiastically agrees to be on the cover of The Ladder, and for the rest of her letters to be published in the magazine. She is quite sure that the people in her daily life will not encounter The Ladder, and therefore won’t be aware of her sexuality and involvement in the homophilic community. Ger also discusses how difficult it is to obtain imported books and the inefficiency of Indonesian customs (something Indonesian viewers of this exhibition can relate to). Ger informs Barbara that she, along with Hetty and Rora, had moved to a new house. From her description, the house was likely located along Jalan Raya Bogor between the sub-districts of Kramat Jati and Depok (the latter now a city within greater Jakarta). However, a location along Jalan Raya Bekasi linking Klender to Pulogadung is also possible.
Ger’s bravery in agreeing to be on the cover of The Ladder, along with her descriptions of her relationship with Hetty and friendship with Rora, are in stark contrast to the tales of isolation in her first letter. Her sense of connection — both from communications with The Ladder’s readers and participating in the lesbian community in Jakarta — appear to have given Ger the courage to present herself as a lesbian and live her life as she is.
This courage even inspired her to further engage with the pursuit of homophilism; she shared books and theories with other women she suspected of being lesbians, as well as with one of her sisters, who was the head of a convent in Central Java. Her conviction that reading books and theories can persuade closeted women to "come out of their shells" might stem from her own experience with her sexuality and The Ladder. It is also a traditionally modernist approach to education, where reading theoretical and other texts can lead to a person ‘discovering’ their innate, true self.
In this letter, Barbara confirms she has received photos of Ger, Hetty, and Rora. Sadly at the time of this exhibition, none of these photos have been found in the archives of the Daughters of Bilitis or the collection of Barbara's papers. We hope to locate them in the future and add additional voices to this time period.
Barbara also emphasises to Ger the importance of her letters, writings, and involvement in the wider lesbian community through The Ladder. After Ger's cover was published, many women expressed interest in also featuring on the cover, allowing the readership to see the faces of their communities around the country.
As Barbara would say later in an interview, "The photo covers were a major breakthrough, because this was our image to the world, including other lesbians who were not part of the movement. And this is the message: 'We are whole and happy and healthy and this is what we look like and never mind what the world says.'" (Gittings, 1988, DOB Video Project for the Lesbian Herstory Archives).
Ger’s bravery also reverberated throughout The Ladder’s international readership, showing that lesbians are found across the world. Her impact has endured; she has been featured in several contemporary publications and media items relating to lesbian history, such as this Library Talks podcast episode (Ger mentioned at around the 30-minute mark) and this display, both from the New York Public Library.
In this short, abrupt letter, Ger informs Barbara of her sudden decision to depart for the Netherlands, and that Hetty and Rora will do the same. Rora has decided to reject her Indonesian citizenship and become a Dutch national, while Hetty lost her Indonesian citizenship due to her divorce. Ger is considering giving up her Indonesian citizenship.
The seemingly unplanned changes in the citizenship of Rora and Hetty were enabled due to the repatriation program of Indo-Dutch citizens in Indonesia mentioned earlier. Between 1949 and 1967, the Dutch government established a repatriation program that allowed Indonesians of Dutch heritage or otherwise to obtain Dutch citizenship.
Rora and Hetty’s decision to repatriate in 1964 might have been influenced by the era’s political and social climate. The confrontation between Malaysia and Indonesia was heating up; anti-Malaysian protesters had burned down the British Embassy in Jakarta in August earlier that year. The Indonesian economy experienced hyperinflation between 1962 and 1966 — yearly inflation peaked at over 600% by the end of this period. With the rapidly escalating political and economic instability in Jakarta, it is unsurprising that these upper class women decided to move to the Netherlands.
Ger’s final letter to Barbara in this exhibition was written shortly after Letter Eight. Rora has already left for the Netherlands while Ger and Hetty are still preparing for their voyage.
In this letter, Ger’s internal conflict over her impending move is clear. She expresses her fear of Barbara’s disappointment and her wish to keep supporting the people she has met in Jakarta; her excitement about watching uncensored media and avoiding having her savings diminished by inflation in the Netherlands; her disgust and anger towards corrupt government officials; and the melancholy of leaving her birthplace. Her sentiments might be shared by many other queer people who leave their birth country for a safer future. Ger’s family were unanimously supportive of her decision to leave Indonesia, believing she would have a better future in the Netherlands.
Ger has become what is known at the time as a Spijtoptanten, a repentist. These are people who chose to become Indonesian citizens but then changed their minds and became Dutch nationals. Around 25,000 people became repentists between 1949 and 1967. Ger’s decision to renounce her Indonesian citizenship is part of the fifth wave of repatriation, which saw those who had chosen Indonesian citizenship face difficulties integrating into Indonesian society.
In this letter, Ger refers to her and her family's time in concentration camps. We now know that they had twice been held in camps in their lifetimes.
Japan invaded Indonesia in December 1941, and by March 1942, the Dutch colonial government had surrendered the country to Japanese occupation. The Japanese forces seized the properties and land of Ger’s family, and they were all forced into a war-time concentration camp. During the same year, Ger also lost her father, Johannes Marius van Braam III.
On August 17, 1945, two days after the Japanese surrender, Indonesia proclaimed independence. With World War Two over, Ger and her family were released from the concentration camp and were able to reclaim their assets. However, the peace was short lasting. Soon after Indonesia’s declaration of independence, the Dutch government announced its rejection of Indonesian sovereignty and its intentions to recolonise the nation.
This announcement of impending attack raised tensions between the national independence movement that was sweeping the country and anyone associated with the Netherlands and/or their attempt to recolonise the country. What followed was a period of violence targeting Eurasian, Dutch, Chinese and Ambonese communities across Java and Sumatra, which was named the bersiap, or getting ready period, by the Dutch.
Ger and her family were once again placed in an internment camp in 1946, although this may have been for their own protection. With anti-Dutch sentiment at such a high level, street violence was targeting many Indo families throughout Java, and Ger's family could have easily been a target. To protect these Indo families from the escalating violence, many were moved into what were known as Republican Camps — facilities under the control of the Indonesian army. Despite the intention to protect the families, the conditions in the camp were harsh due to a lack of supplies and poor sanitation. When the territory the camp was located in was seized by the Dutch, Ger’s family was moved to Jakarta.
At the end of the letter, Ger mentions that she is going to meet her Dutch penpals and visit the already famous club, the COC (Cultuur en Ontspanningscentrum, or the Centre for Culture and Leisure). Founded in 1946, the COC is still active in the Netherlands and is the longest running LGBTIQ+ rights organisation in the world. It is currently engaged in supporting queer organisations in Indonesia, including Queer Indonesia Archive.
Although we have not been able to locate any further correspondence between Ger and Barbara, we do know Ger was successful in joining Rora in the Netherlands and had arrived there by the end of 1964.
Ger gained Dutch citizenship in 1969 and found work as a secretary and an accountant. Despite her hopes for her independence in the Netherlands, she had to overcome many difficulties in the post-war Dutch economy. Indo-Dutch people faced many barriers to their success due to racism and discrimination alongside the discreditation of their education and qualifications.
Ger remained an artist, and continued to produce creative works. She met the love of her life, Jooske, in 1985, and they were together until Ger’s passing in 2010, at the age of 83.
Barbara continued to edit The Ladder until 1966 and remained an activist for LGBTQ+ rights until her death in 2007. Daughters of Bilitis, the organisation that published The Ladder, continued to operate until 1970. Rita LaPorte and Barbara Griers, former president and member of DOB respectively, continued publishing the magazine privately until September 1972.
The team who made this possible
Curators:
Harits Paramasatya (he/they) is a member of the organising collective of Queer Indonesia Archive and one of its co-founders. He started his exploration about queer identity in history as a visual artist. His work Remembering Khem, an installation about a fictional gay activist won the 4th Bandung Contemporary Art Awards. He is passionate about queer representation in both art and history. He works as a UX writer and is based in Denpasar, Bali.
Beau Newham (he/him) is a writer, activist and community archivist. He has over 10 years experience working at the intersections of LGBTIQ+ activism and HIV advocacy. Beau centre's his work on community building and the power of storytelling. He is currently based in Melbourne, Australia and works in advocacy and support for people living with HIV at Living Positive Victoria and the National Association of People with HIV Australia.
Designer: Saundra Liemantoro (@saundra.online). Saundra is a multidisciplinary designer and maker whose work spans the mediums of ceramics, graphics and product design.
Copyeditor: Julia Winterflood. Julia is a freelance writer, editor, and translator who has called Indonesia home since 2014.
Translators:
Harits Paramasatya
Kenny Masjhur. Kenny is a cultural studies student interested in gender and queer issues. She is currently working on her master’s degree.
Research acknowledgements
Uncovering the details of someone's life is never a solo effort. We want to thank the following people and institutions for their support for this exhibition.
Egbert Fortuin (1972) studied Slavic languages and cultures and philosophy at the University of Amsterdam and is professor of Russian language and linguistics at Leiden University. He is currently working on a book about the Indo-Dutch Van Braam family, the family of his partner Aschwin. A monograph titled Indische adel: de koloniale lotgevallen van de familie Van Braam (Dutch Indies nobility: the colonial story of the Van Braam family) will be published by Walburg Pers.
The GLBT Historical Society collects, preserves, exhibits and makes accessible to the public materials and knowledge to support and promote understanding of LGBTQ history, culture and arts in all their diversity.
The Lesbian Herstory Archives exists to gather, preserve and provide access to records of lesbian lives and activities. Doing this also serves to uncover and document herstory previously denied to lesbians by patriarchal historians in the interests of the culture that they served. The existence of the Archives will thus enable current and future generations to analyse and reevaluate the lesbian experience.
New York Public Library Manuscripts and Archives Division
We also extend our thanks to Dr Judith Schuyf, Professor Andrew Shield, Inge De Taeye and Eric Marcus at Making Gay History, Danny Halim and IHLIA LGBT Heritage, the team at the Australia Queer Archives and finally the passionate members of the Dutch Genealogy Facebook Group.
Lastly, special thanks to Ger's partner Roos for sharing her stories and photos of her life with Ger.
Further Reading
Barbara Gittings
Those interested in a full account of Barbara Gittings life and impact should read the excellent book Barbara Gittings: Gay Pioneer by Tracy Baim.
There is also an incredible interview with Barbara Gittings and Kay "Tobin" Lahusen over two episodes of Making Gay History that can be accessed here and here.
The Ladder & The Daughters of Bilitis
Daughters of Bilitis Video Project - This collection is composed of videos digitised from the Daughters of Bilitis Video Project collection at the Lesbian Herstory Archives. The purpose of the project was to gather interviews with the founders and former members of the Daughters of Bilitis in order to document their critical role in the gay/lesbian liberation movement, as well as the Civil Rights movement.
Phyllis Lyon and Del Martin papers - Papers of Phyllis Lyon and Del Martin covering their extensive activism in the homophile, gay liberation, lesbian and women's movements. Materials include extensive documentation of the Daughters of Bilitis, and the books Lesbian/Woman and Battered Wives. Digitised copies of the Phyllis and Del collection are available through the GLBT Historical Society. If interested please send a request to reference@glbthistory.org
Polari
For those interested in learning more about Polari, please see this very informative essay The Feints and Jabs of Polari, Britain’s Gay Slang or see it in action in this great reenactment.
Queer Indonesia Archive
The Queer Indonesia Archive is a digital archiving project committed to the collection, preservation and celebration of material reflecting the lives and experiences of queer Indonesia. Our project is volunteer run, community focused and non-profit.
See our other exhibitions here.
For information on how to support our project please click here.