'Evie' now lives in fear in Jakarta slum - Obama's nanny

Barack Obama (far right) with his mother Ann Durham, Indonesian stepfather Lolo Soetoro and sister Maya Soetoro in Jakarta, Indonesia, in 1970. Photo / Supplied

The former nanny who helped care for a young Barack Obama now lives her days in a shelter for transgender women.

Born a man, Evie identifies as a woman but is forced to dress as male due to widespread discrimination faced by Indonesia's LGBT community, said news.com.au.

The nanny, who cared for the boy who would go on to become President of the United States, was discovered living on Jakarta's streets in 2012, fearing for her life.

Having endured beatings by soldiers, constant harassment and difficulty finding work, she revealed how she was forced to rely on sex work to survive.

According to Human Rights Indonesian researcher Andreas Harsono not much has changed for Evie since then.

If anything, things are worse than ever.

Evie shows a picture of herself, left, dressed as a woman with an unidentified friend in a pageant, in Jakarta, Indonesia. Photo / AP

Mr Harsono said the transgender community didn't feel safe even in a big city such as Jakarta.

He also said it wasn't just the transgender community who felt unsafe.

Recent raids on the gay and lesbian community fuelled by religious intolerance targeting minorities had also left many others petrified.

"Homosexuality isn't accepted," he said.

"It is seen as unnatural and a mental illness."

Mr Harsono said people like Evie faced massive hurdles in day-to-day life.

"Transgender people find it hard to find work and accessing health and education," he said.

"Many are not accepted by their families and run away from home before they're 18, the age they can get their national ID card."

Despite that, Mr Harsono said Evie, who is now in her late 60s, remained a proud person who was sometimes reluctant to talk about her famous charge.

"Evie worked for the Obamas when she was around 19 or 20," he said.

"Obama's mother asked her to come and work for them and she did."

BEATINGS, ABUSE

Evie gave up wearing dresses after discovering a friend's body floating in a canal two decades ago.

"I knew in my heart I was a woman, but I didn't want to die like that," she told the AP.

"So I decided to just accept it. I've been living like this, a man, ever since."

Evie, also known as Turdi, was the former nanny of US President Barack Obama. Photo / AP

Evie also revealed she was abused growing up by a father who thought his son was too feminine.

HRW said it was difficult to estimate how many people were transgender in Indonesia, with many hiding their sexuality.

However Mr Harsono said he believed there were around 30,000 in Jakarta alone.

FAMOUS CHARGE

In 1969 Evie met Ann Dunham, Barack Obama's mother, who had arrived in the country two years earlier after marrying her second husband, Indonesian Lolo Soetoro.

She 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 eight-year-old "Barry's" caretaker.

Once the family left Indonesia Evie struggled to find work and was forced into sex work to make a living.

"It's the only way she can get money," Mr Harsono said.

In a 2012 interview with the Associated Press, Evie said she didn't dress up as a woman in front of young Obama who she looked after for around two years.

Neighbours recalled they often saw Evie leave the house in the evening fully made up and dressed in drag. But she says it's doubtful the boy she called "Barry" ever knew.

"He was so young," Evie said.

"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."

She didn't even realise the boy she helped care for won the US Presidential election in 2008 until she saw it on the news.

RISE OF INTOLERANCE

In 2012, Indonesia's highest Islamic body decreed people are required to live as the sex they were born.

Ichwan Syam, a prominent Muslim cleric at the influential Indonesian Ulema Council said people had to learn to accept nature.

"If they are not willing to cure themselves medically and religiously" they have "to accept their fate to be ridiculed and harassed," he said at the time.

Evie was born a man but believes she is really a woman and has endured a lifetime of taunts and beatings because of her identity. Photo / AP

The intolerance against minorities has continued.

Just this month, a raid in the West Java province targeted 12 suspected lesbians.

Local Islamic youth groups and religious leaders complained the women's cohabitation was "against the teachings of Islam".

Human Rights Watch said the forced evictions violated the women's right to privacy and police demanded the women relocate elsewhere with no legal justification.

According to HRW, at least four raids have been carried out on LGBTI people in private settings this year alone.

On March 28, vigilantes forcibly entered an apartment in Aceh and took two men to the police for allegedly having same-sex relations. The men were publicly flogged two months later.