“Dorian”, a 30-year-old brand manager for one of the nation’s largest consumer goods companies does not sport the stereotypical attributes of a person with his sexual orientation.

He wears no fashionable sweater or nose ring, makes no effeminate hand gestures and does not continually spout sexual innuendos.

“I know many gays who are very open about their sexuality. I’m not like that,” said Dorian.

He keeps quiet whenever someone asks if he is gay. “I just ask them ‘What do you think?’ and never give an answer to their question.”

Dorian has gone from one job to another since he graduated from university.

Around a month ago, he landed his current job at a company whose products can be found in nearly every Indonesian home.

Never once has Dorian told his colleagues about his sexual orientation.

“What’s the good in it for me?” He said he always found it more convenient not to talk about his sexuality.

“I think it would do me much more harm than good if people knew. They would definitely talk about me behind my back, and I would hate that.”

He recalled a conversation with colleagues from his previous office revolving around lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender (LGBT) people.

“There was this guy who people thought was gay. One day at lunch, some people started to say funny things about him. I didn’t really know this guy but there I was, hearing all sorts of things about him. It really annoyed me,” he said.

“If they knew about me, I’m sure they would bad mouthing me as well.”

Dorian did not believe that he would have been stripped of his promotion opportunities if he had come out of the closet at work.

“My previous job with a banking institution was very specific and I was the only person who could do it. I don’t think they would have fired me because of my sexual orientation,” he said.

Dorian said while the company he currently worked for was open to gay employees, “I will never tell anyone at all about me being like that.”

Leny, 34, has spent nine months working as a human resources employee for an oil service company.

She said she had often tried to talk about LGBT issues with her colleagues.

“They are vehemently anti-LGBT. They tell me it’s a sin, abnormal or disgusting to be a homosexual,” she said.

“They have a very old-fashioned way of thinking. Most of them look at it from a religious point of view.”

Leny, like Dorian, said there was no way she would ever tell any of her colleagues that she was a lesbian.

“If they found out, it would most probably mar the workplace environment.”

While white-collar workers have largely declined to reveal their sexual orientation in the workplace, the younger generation of LGBT people are more confident.

Hartoyo, the secretary-general of Our Voice — a local education and advocacy organization for gay and bisexual men — said there was a trend among the younger gay generation to be more candid about their sexuality, especially at work.

“I believe that the straightforward nature of young people in general today accounts, in part, for this new-found openness.

“Another factor is the development of information technology that allows people to be more expressive,” he said.

Among the many gay social networking sites and forums in the nation is the Gay Indo Forum, which has recorded more than 28,500 users after its launch in October 2008.

“Our most active members are teenagers or in their early 20s. Those over 30 are not as active as the younger people because they have jobs and less time to go online.

“They have a different lifestyle when compared to younger people, who are more expressive,” said a forum administrator who asked to be identified as A Shen.

Indonesia’s LGBT social network stretches back to the early 1980s with the establishment of the nation’s first LGBT rights organization, Lambda Indonesia, which became Gaya Nusantara in the early 1990s.

The organization was founded by noted Indonesian gay activist Dede Oetomo, who was a lecturer at Airlangga University in Surabaya, East Java, from 1984 and 2003.

As another token of the inclusiveness, Jakarta has also seen the introduction of several sprawling LGBT nightclubs in recent years, luring crowds from Singapore and Malaysia to party during the weekend.

Compared its neighbors, Indonesia is deemed friendlier in its treatment of the LGBT community.

Among the nightclubs targeting gay consumers are ML Disco on Jl. Hayam Wuruk in West Jakarta, Centro and Heaven in Dharmawangsa Square on Jl. Dharmawangsa 4 in South Jakarta, and Apollo Bar & Lounge at the Bellagio Mall in Mega Kuningan, South Jakarta.

- JP/Arghea Desafti Hapsari

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