DAP rep withdraws motion for committee to support transgenders

GEORGE TOWN (May 9): Barely two days after he had expressed his intention, the DAP's Tanjung Bungah assemblyman Teh Yee Cheu has withdrawn his private member's motion in the Penang State Assembly for the setting up of a committee to help transgender people with an allocation of RM200,000.

The withdrawal was announced by chief minister and DAP secretary general Lim Guan Eng in a statement today.

Lim said Teh's latest decision was based on requests by DAP's assembly members and MPs in Penang during a meeting held at Komtar at 2pm today.

"Teh is also aware that for the motion to be debated, he needs a seconder. But there is not a single PR (Pakatan Rakyat) assembly member in Penang ready to support his motion," Lim said.

"This issue has been heatedly manipulated by the mass media controlled by BN in order to criticise the DAP's party stand, although this is not the party's stand but only a personal view of a DAP assemblyman."

"Unfortunately, my statement that the motion is not that of the Penang PR government or that of the DAP but purely a personal one by Teh as an assemblyman has not been aired in the BN media at all," he said.

Teh had two days ago announced that he would table a motion to push for the setting up of a transgender committee motion in the coming state legislative assembly. He had said the state government's lack of enthusiasm for the matter, which he had brought up last year, spurred his decision to table a Private Member's Bill in the upcoming sitting.

However, based on the advice of Speaker Datuk Law Choo Kiang recently, he later decided to table a motion on the issue instead.

He had also lamented that the state executive council had verbally rejected his application to set up a transgender committee without any formal explanation.

Lim today reiterated that he would work to ask Teh to return to base and operate as a team with the DAP by withdrawing his motion.

He added that with the withdrawal, the issue is considered closed and Teh abides with the "unanimous decision" of the party leadership and legislative members in Penang.


FZ