Meet ‘Evie’ — Obama’s Transgender Ex-Nanny in Indonesia
- Posted on March 5, 2012 at 8:59am by
Billy Hallowell
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JAKARTA, Indonesia (AP) — Once, long ago, Evie looked after “Barry” Obama, the kid who would grow up to become the world’s most powerful man. Now, his transgender former nanny has given up her tight, flowery dresses, her brocade vest and her bras, and is living in fear on Indonesia’s streets.
Evie, who was born a man but believes she is really a woman, has endured a lifetime of taunts and beatings because of her identity. She describes how soldiers once shaved her long, black hair to the scalp and smashed out glowing cigarettes onto her hands and arms.
In this Friday, Jan. 27, 2012 photo, Evie, also known as Turdi, the former nanny of U.S. President Barack Obama, shows a picture of herself, left, dressed as a woman with an unidentified friend in a pageant, in Jakarta, Indonesia. (AP Photo/Dita Alangkara)
The turning point came when she found a transgender friend’s bloated body floating in a backed-up sewage canal two decades ago. She grabbed all her girlie clothes in her arms and stuffed them into two big boxes. Half-used lipstick, powder, eye makeup — she gave them all away.
“I knew in my heart I was a woman, but I didn’t want to die like that,” says Evie, now 66, her lips trembling slightly as the memories flood back. “So I decided to just accept it. … I’ve been living like this, a man, ever since.”
Indonesia’s attitude toward transgenders is complex.
Nobody knows how many of them live in the sprawling archipelagic nation of 240 million, but activists estimate 7 million. Because Indonesia is home to more Muslims than any other country in the world, the pervasiveness of men who live as women and vice versa often catches newcomers by surprise. They hold the occasional pageant, work as singers or at salons and include well-known celebrity talk show host Dorce Gamalama.
However, societal disdain still runs deep – when transgenders act in TV comedies, they are invariably the brunt of the joke. They have taken a much lower profile in recent years, following a series of attacks by Muslim hard-liners. And the country’s highest Islamic body has decreed that they are required to live as they were born because each gender has obligations to fulfill, such as reproduction.
In this Friday, Jan. 27, 2012 photo, Evie, also known as Turdi, the former nanny of U.S. President Barack Obama, stands at the doorway of her room at a boarding house in a slum in Jakarta, Indonesia. (Photo: Dita Alangkara/AP)
“They must learn to accept their nature,” says Ichwan Syam, a prominent Muslim cleric at the influential Indonesian Ulema Council. “If they are not willing to cure themselves medically and religiously” they have “to accept their fate to be ridiculed and harassed.”
Many transgenders turn to prostitution because jobs are hard to find and because they want to live according to what they believe is their true gender. In doing so, they put themselves at risk of contracting AIDS and other sexually transmitted diseases.
Some, like Evie, have decided it’s better to hide their feelings. Others are pushing back. Last month, a 50-year-old Indonesian transvestite applied to be the next leader of the national human rights commission, showing up in a borrowed luxury vehicle with paparazzi cameras flashing as she stepped out.
“I’m too ugly to be a prostitute,” Yuli Retoblaut said, chuckling. “But I can be their bodyguard.”
The threat of violence is very real: Indonesia’s National Commission for Human Rights receives about 1,000 reports of abuses per year, ranging from murder and rape to the disruption to group activities. Worldwide, at least one person is killed every other day, according to the Trans Murder Monitoring Project, which collects homicide reports.
In this Friday, Jan. 27, 2012 photo, Indonesian transvestites perform a dance for small change in Jakarta, Indonesia. Indonesia's attitude toward transgenders is complex (AP)
Evie says she chose her current name because she thought it sounded sweet. But she adds, as she pulls out her national identification card, her official name is Turdi and gender male. Several longtime residents of Obama’s old Menteng neighborhood confirmed that Turdi had worked there as his nanny for two years, also caring for his baby sister Maya. When asked about the nanny, the White House had no comment.
Evie, who like many Indonesians goes by a single name, now lives in a closet-sized hovel in a tightly packed slum in an eastern corner of Jakarta, collecting and scrubbing dirty laundry to pay for food. She wears baggy blue jeans and a white T-shirt advertising a tranquil beach resort far away in a place she’s never been. She speaks softly, politely, and a deep worry line is etched between her eyes.
As a child, Evie was often beaten by a father who couldn’t stand having such a “sissy” for a son.
“He wanted me to act like a boy, even though I didn’t feel it in my soul,” she says.
Teased and bullied, she dropped out of school after the third grade and decided to learn how to cook.
As it turned out, she was pretty good at it, making her way into the kitchens of several high-ranking officials by the time she was a teenager, she recalls with a smile and a wink. And so it was, at a cocktail party in 1969, that she met Ann Dunham, Barack Obama’s mother, who had arrived in the country two years earlier after marrying her second husband, Indonesian Lolo Soetoro.
Dunham was so impressed by Evie’s beef steak and fried rice that she offered her a job in the family home. It didn’t take long before Evie also was 8-year-old Barry’s caretaker, playing with him and bringing him to and from school.
Neighbors recalled that they often saw Evie leave the house in the evening fully made up and dressed in drag. But she says it’s doubtful Barry ever knew.
“He was so young,” says Evie. “And I never let him see me wearing women’s clothes. But he did see me trying on his mother’s lipstick, sometimes. That used to really crack him up.”
When the family left in the early 1970s, things started going downhill. She moved in with a boyfriend. That relationship ended three years later, and she became a sex worker.
“I tried to get a job as a maid, but no one would hire me,” says Evie. “I needed money to buy food, get a place to stay.”
U.S. President Barack Obama
It was a cat-and-mouse game with security guards and — because the country was still under the dictatorship of Gen. Suharto — soldiers. They often rounded up “banshees” or “warias,” as they are known locally, loaded them into trucks, and brought them to a field where they were kicked, hit and otherwise abused.
The raid that changed everything came in 1985. She and her friends scattered into dark alleys to escape the swinging batons. One particularly beautiful girl, Susi, jumped into a canal strewn with garbage.
When things quieted, those who ran went back to look for her.
“We searched all night,” says Evie, who is still haunted by the memory of her friend’s face. “Finally … we found her. It was horrible. Her body swollen, face bashed in.”
Today Evie seeks solace in religion, going regularly to the mosque and praying five times a day. She says she’s just waiting to die.
“I don’t have a future anymore.”
She says she didn’t know the boy she helped raise won the 2008 U.S. presidential election until she saw a picture of the family in local newspapers and on TV. She blurted out that she knew him.
“I couldn’t believe my eyes,” she says, breaking into a huge grin.
Her friends at first laughed and thought she was crazy, but those who live in the family‘s old neighborhood say it’s true.
“Many neighbors would remember Turdi … she was popular here at that time,” says Rudy Yara, who still lives across the street from Obama’s former house. “She was a nice person and was always patient and caring in keeping young Barry.”
Evie hopes her former charge will use his power to fight for people like her. Obama named Amanda Simpson, the first openly transgender appointee, as a senior technical adviser in the Commerce Department in 2010.
For Evie, who‘s now just trying to earn enough to survive each day on Jakarta’s streets, the election victory itself was enough to give her a reason – for the first time in a long time – to feel proud.
“Now when people call me scum,” she says, “I can just say: ‘But I was the nanny for the President of the United States!’”
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Comments (140)
Concernd4USA
Posted on March 5, 2012 at 9:35amkind of like the crazy nanny in the recent Omen movie
Report Post »GeorgeWashingtonslept here
Posted on March 5, 2012 at 9:39amNow that’s a good one! LOL
Report Post »Snowleopard {gallery of cat folks}
Posted on March 5, 2012 at 9:46amCould also be that she knows something on Obama; and he is trying to make sure she is silenced once and for all.
Report Post »HKS
Posted on March 5, 2012 at 9:56amWell, I guess they will get away with the Breitbart caper, they shut that one up fast, have you seen any media anywhere on that one.
Report Post »Vechorik
Posted on March 5, 2012 at 10:02amObama is a multi-millionaire. To let his friends and relatives live in poverty — I don’t understand. His aunt and uncle on government assistance in the US is a disgrace. So is Evie. Obama obviously has no heart.
Report Post »Ruler4You
Posted on March 5, 2012 at 10:08amThis may explain why Michelle looks like a line backer….
Report Post »Detroit paperboy
Posted on March 5, 2012 at 10:14amThis explains alot…. Google Obama’s gay past, pretty strange stuff….. How in the hell did this guy become president ??? It is beyond me…
Report Post »CatB
Posted on March 5, 2012 at 10:20am@HKS — FYI — his legacy…..
The Vetting, Part I: Barack’s Love Song To Alinsky
http://www.breitbart.com/Big-Government/2012/03/04/obama-alinsky-love-song
I can‘t for the life of me understand why this isn’t posted on THE BLAZE as a headline!
Report Post »CatB
Posted on March 5, 2012 at 10:23am@DETROIT PAPERBOY …
Yes if you look behind most perversion you will find more … passed on … and on …
Report Post »Restored One
Posted on March 5, 2012 at 10:57amHKS, I have thought the same thing all weekend, absolutely nothing further of Breitbart. I wonder if the Blaze and Drudge have been threatened.
Report Post »lillymckim
Posted on March 5, 2012 at 11:27amObamas nanny is a tranny
Report Post »lillymckim
Posted on March 5, 2012 at 11:29amObamas nanny is a tranny?
Report Post »Baddoggy
Posted on March 5, 2012 at 11:36amMight explain this…
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fgTbLeSuee4&feature=autoplay&list=PL48AFA9A2FD0B59AB&lf=results_main&playnext=2
Report Post »Mark0331
Posted on March 5, 2012 at 1:57pmThats why Barry married Patrick Ewing…this explains everything.
Report Post »ReddenBlack
Posted on March 5, 2012 at 4:05pmI think this means that Sarah Palin is automatically now President and Obama is legally required to register as sex offender. Right?
Right?
Oh no wait, this has absolutely nothing to do with anything.
Report Post »@leftfighter
Posted on March 5, 2012 at 4:18pmIt never fails.
Every single time someone from Obama’s background is revealed, it’s always someone sitting well outside of the mainstream.
It’s a transgender freak here, here a Communist, there a Socialist, “Oh that guy? He’s just a professor whose kids go to the same school as mine. He’s a what? Really?! I hand’t heard! …so anyway, back to how the rich are evil…”
Report Post »rs9
Posted on March 5, 2012 at 5:24pmdid I read that correctly “ many nieghbors would remember Turdi” how appropriatel named. Bummer was sorounded by perverts his entire life there is no possibility that he is not a pervert
Report Post »dublinthewagons
Posted on March 5, 2012 at 6:00pmNo wonder Obama has so many problems. Just look at his mother and and they way he was raised.
Report Post »It’s our problem to dealwith now. He is one confused America hating POS. He needs to start training for his new job, as burger flippers don’t have teleptompters. “Would you like free with that order?”
Big hips Mooselle can deliver the order on rollerskates.
MYHEROISRON
Posted on March 5, 2012 at 7:03pmI can see why Hussein is so ashamed of his past … gee, a transvestite nanny. Aunts and uncles living in mud huts in Africa, Uncles waiting to answer drunk driving charges, and … how many communist, homosexual lovers has he had? This is gonna be almost as fun as the Kennedy assassination conspiracy theories …
Report Post »momprayn
Posted on March 5, 2012 at 9:34amJust when I think I know “a lot” about the horrible past/family of Obama and how he truly is….I read something else that’s unbelievable. His whole family and friends/mentors/pastors seem to have been under satanic control. Saturated.
Report Post »And now we have all the blatant unconstitutional, unpatriotic stuff he and his Admin. are doing all the time, and our Reps./politicians don’t really say much at all and do nothing — even saying the ridiculous like “he’s a nice guy, but he doesn’t understand” (like Romney) or “I”m sure they have good intentions, but”….b/c the Repub. Establishment has told them never say anything negative about him personally b/c so many like him. SHEESH !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
BOMUSTGO
Posted on March 5, 2012 at 9:43amMakes you wonder if this is the “Delusion” that the sheeple will endure in the End Of the Age?
Report Post »Bluebonnet
Posted on March 5, 2012 at 11:00amI’ve been on a bus from the Jakarta harbor through the slums and believe me, it reminded me of the slums on many border towns here. The difference was the narrow open sewers that ran just off the roadway. The other parts of Jakarta a saw were quite beautiful.
Report Post »GeorgeWashingtonslept here
Posted on March 5, 2012 at 9:33amTurdi……………..seems fit. Rhymes with Obama to me. :)
Report Post »Slowman101
Posted on March 5, 2012 at 9:32amWow. Now I think I have seen it all. It does explain why Obama is so screwed up in the head. How he ever got elected is beyond me. Hope and change? KEEP IT! Along with the lies and corruption. The elections can’t come soon enough for me.
Report Post »GeorgeWashingtonslept here
Posted on March 5, 2012 at 9:38amI agree! I hope Romney comes out of the starting gate full force. Sorry folks but it is going to be Romney………….we have to back him 100%…….we have got to defeat this POS that is our President, or we’re screwed ………….
Report Post »Freedom from liberals
Posted on March 5, 2012 at 8:24pmI wonder what his potty lessons were like/
Report Post »2theADDLED
Posted on March 5, 2012 at 11:19pmI call for a Psychiatric eval ?
Report Post »objectivetruth
Posted on March 5, 2012 at 9:32amWel Wel Well.Another institution of love brought to you by the muslim clerics.Transgender people were considered normal and accepted in there society until the muslims came along.Explains crazy Barry more and more everyday doesn’t it.Ah yes sir, indeed hope and change.His poor old nanny is still waiting for it.Oops that right she/he already got it.Infested with muslims.Barry doesn’t even lift a finger.So many diasters so little time for making use of them.Another defeat brought to you by the barry’s bumblers team.
Report Post »JP4JOY
Posted on March 5, 2012 at 9:30amSo we had a Turdi watching over a turd. His life is coming full circle.
Report Post »BOMUSTGO
Posted on March 5, 2012 at 9:52amHe needs to “flushed” in November!
Report Post »BOMUSTGO
Posted on March 5, 2012 at 9:55amTurds do make a full circle when they are flushed.
Report Post »sdbonkowski
Posted on March 5, 2012 at 11:22amhe needs to be deported back to nanny turdi instead of us
Report Post »Darla_K
Posted on March 5, 2012 at 9:29amThe White House could not comment? This administration is so dirty with its secrets and hush hush and scrubbing on the internet. The truth will set you free Mr. President.
Report Post »Chuck Stein
Posted on March 5, 2012 at 10:58am“The truth will set you free Mr. President.” — yes, free from the White House.
Report Post »WatchingAmericaDie
Posted on March 5, 2012 at 9:48pmNow that we know Obama really is a turd — and all turds are dirty and disgusting — the White House may not be so white now.
Report Post »jg2pto
Posted on March 5, 2012 at 9:24am“In doing so, they put themselves at risk of contracting AIDS and other sexually transmitted diseases.”
Is it politically incorrect to say this is natural selection at work?
Report Post »Itsjusttim
Posted on March 5, 2012 at 9:32amBlame it on men, they are the ones who want billions of people in the world so they can have a huge tax base. The more dust that gets used up to create people, the more abominations walk the earth.
Report Post »Itsjusttim
Posted on March 5, 2012 at 9:34amBut who’s the bigger abomination, the people who get tainted dust, or the men beasts who want billions and billions of people to count for taxation power?
Report Post »Razorhunters
Posted on March 5, 2012 at 9:24amfake bc’s , stolen id…
but now at least we know he had a nanny …
does lebanon support a dual citizenship?
have to be a citizen to go to lebanon schools…
this bs is bad comedy.
Report Post »chasbronson
Posted on March 5, 2012 at 9:24amIt still is unbelievable that Obama could have been elected.I thought I was going to vomit when Bill Clinton got elected.Obama is the poster child for all that is wrong with the human race.
Report Post »hauschild
Posted on March 5, 2012 at 10:02amYeah, but when half the country thinks like Obama does, you’re fighting a losing battle.
Report Post »cripplecreek
Posted on March 5, 2012 at 9:24amIck
Report Post »Skippy Toes
Posted on March 5, 2012 at 9:29amGood lord. Does his saga ever end?
Report Post »BOMUSTGO
Posted on March 5, 2012 at 9:46amThis twisted saga ends when The Obomination gets cast into the lake of fire.
Report Post »smokie
Posted on March 5, 2012 at 1:00pmIn reading this, my first question is why the Obama family take the nanny with them when they left Jakarta? Now this person has an absolutely crap life, where in Hawaii it wouldn’t have been so bad.
Report Post »NanNJ
Posted on March 5, 2012 at 9:21amHis mother was a strange bird. This has so much to do with Obama’s disdain for this country and all we hold dear. His upbringing was beyond weird. He had no choice but to be a democrat, this garbage would never have withstood the MSM if he were a republican.
Report Post »chasbronson
Posted on March 5, 2012 at 9:21amWhat kind of person has been elected as president ?Oh how stupid the American people have become.At least half of them anyhow.There is an active agenda to destroy this country .
Report Post »SpankDaMonkey
Posted on March 5, 2012 at 9:20am.
Report Post »I have thought for some time FLOTUS was a man. Now I have proof. It’s just Nasty……
BOMUSTGO
Posted on March 5, 2012 at 9:20amBorn in Kenya, “Reared” in Indonesia!
Report Post »SpankDaMonkey
Posted on March 5, 2012 at 9:30am.
Report Post »Please don’t say Reared……..I just threw up a little………….
Razorhunters
Posted on March 5, 2012 at 9:17amso instead of checking into barry…you check his trans whatever nanny…
did you know 1 must be a citizen to attend the schools there…?
and they do not allow dual citizens.
fake bc’s , stolen id…
a report on the nanny…wtf.
Report Post »RaiderNationKissArmy
Posted on March 5, 2012 at 9:15amSo many jokes I could make but so little time…
Report Post »islamhater
Posted on March 5, 2012 at 9:27amYa did he/she/it teach him to pitch or catch? hehehe so gross.
Report Post »RJJinGadsden
Posted on March 5, 2012 at 9:14amThe photographs made Adam Sandler’s Longest Yard pop into my head! Ouch, that was horrible.
Report Post »Hickory
Posted on March 5, 2012 at 9:13amThis kind of puts a stain on Obama‘s bi state of sexual choice don’t you think? It would be nice to look into his closet and see what he likes to wear. We know he can‘t wear Michelle’s drawers. Her butt is so big those drawers would fit a buffalo. Hey, they do fit on one every day!
Report Post »Gonzo
Posted on March 5, 2012 at 9:16amThey do wear the same size shoes though.
Report Post »HKS
Posted on March 5, 2012 at 9:13amStrange to see anything about this guys life before politics. It must be one of the best kept secrets in the world. When it comes to Obama the press has been brain dead.
Report Post »Gonzo
Posted on March 5, 2012 at 9:15amIntentionally brain dead.
Report Post »MBA
Posted on March 5, 2012 at 9:10amAnother clue as to obamy’s confusion with reality. Surprising she isn‘t dead yet like obamy’s gay pals in Chitown.
Report Post »RightUnite
Posted on March 5, 2012 at 9:12amC’mon now… Give them time to find him… ;-)
Report Post »Gonzo
Posted on March 5, 2012 at 9:10amSo, he’s raised by a transvestite and goes on to allow open homosexuality in the U.S. military and refuses to enforce DOMA. Then as he grows older, he gravitates towards radicals and Marxists and we‘re supposed to believe he doesn’t harbour any Marxist visions for the country?
Report Post »Baddoggy
Posted on March 5, 2012 at 11:39amShhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh Gonzo…you will wake the Sheeple…be quiet man!
Report Post »copatriots
Posted on March 5, 2012 at 9:08amYou can know them by the company they keep……..
What a bizarre childhood and collection of family and friends. What a traditional American with American values we have as our represented president.
Report Post »Gonzo
Posted on March 5, 2012 at 9:38amHis mother must have been a real piece of work.
Report Post »Operaman
Posted on March 5, 2012 at 9:08amAwwww, that’s so sweet!
EVERYBODY should have a transgender nanny. It makes for a really well-adjusted kid.
Report Post »Maybe THAT explains Obama!
sWampy
Posted on March 5, 2012 at 9:04amOne had to wonder where his love of fudge packing started.
Report Post »RightUnite
Posted on March 5, 2012 at 9:13amI think it would be safe to say that his formative years were when he got his first
Report Post »“taste” if you would…..
auntmoxie.com
Posted on March 5, 2012 at 9:13amThat’s a real kind comment.
Report Post »randy
Posted on March 5, 2012 at 9:14amTurdi???? could the parents of this thing think of a more appropriate name or what? LOL
Report Post »Walkabout
Posted on March 5, 2012 at 11:14amRandy,
Turdi worked as a nanny. I wonder about his upbringing. He’s a beta male.
It wouldn’t take much to push a guy that way. Come from a poor family. Be small for your age. Develop a little later than your peers. You seem to get into less trouble & get out of more scrapes by being submissive than standing up for yourself. It wouldn’t be hard for a small fractions of guys to believe they were born in the wrong body.
The atheist/gay lobby disparaging refers to God as the magic man in the sky. In the meantime they have no explanation for transgendered. None. They have plenty for being gay. None which have panned out yet. So God is the magic many in the sky & yet with science gays can explain nothing. they are still looking for the magic gay gene.
Obama will not help Turdi anymore than he would help his half brother in Kenya. Obama is just not that type of guy.
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