Social Media and Lesbians in Malaysia

A lesbian refers to a woman who is attracted to those of the same sex, i.e. other females. In Malaysia, lesbian relationships are a serious offence that could result in a jail term of up to 20 years as well as caning. Due the various forms of discrimination received, lesbians tend to distance themselves from the community and try to hide their different sexual identity. The lesbian community is seen to use social media as a safe medium to communicate among themselves. Therefore, this study was carried out to determine the extent to which social media is used as a hidden world and safe haven for this group of people in Malaysia, to avoid being ostracised from the current social system. The method used for this study is via online observation. Based on data received from December 2015 until July 2016, it is found that there is an increase in the number of visitors to or followers of websites (240,102 users), facebook (56,671 users) and twitter (8957 users), which shows that social media is indeed the hidden world of lesbians in Malaysia.