Black Lesbian Influencer Apologized To Balinese for Promoting the Popular Southeast Asian Resort Island as LGBTQ-Friendly and Affording A “Luxury Lifestyle” in Tone-Deaf Social Media Posts After Deportation And Six-Month Ban From Returning
by Heather Cassell
Deported American influencer quazi-apologizes to Balinese for “LGBTQ-friendly” social media comment a week after being kicked out of the country and banned from returning for six months.
Kristen Antoinette Gray still denies her girlfriend, Saundra Michelle Alexander, and she did anything wrong, despite leaving a wake of unrest and concern among the Indonesian island’s queer residents.
Safely back in California, January 26, Kristen took to a Bali-based Facebook group calling her Twitter thread praising the island’s luxury lifestyle and Black- and LGBTQI-friendliness “a mistake,” reported Coconuts, a Southeast Asian alternative news and lifestyle website.
The 28-year-old graphic designer and influencer was apologizing for her Twitter posts promoting the Bali travel guide, “Our Bali Life Is Yours,” her 30-year-old girlfriend and she published January 16.
“It’s a guide breaking down how we did it and how you can do it too,” she tweeted, reported The Associated Press. The tweet has since been deleted.
The book is selling for $30 online. A quick guide is also selling for $10. The women’s $50 45-minute consultation cited by Indonesian authorities in the release about the women’s arrest and deportation has been removed from the site.
The tweets promoting the book and consulting services that went viral came off as tone-deaf to locals and authorities.
Kristen touted Bali’s affordability, safety, and friendliness, especially for Black and queer travelers, along with their travel consulting services in her tweets the week prior to their being sent back to the United States.
Her now deleted tweets gushed, “The island has been amazing because of our elevated lifestyle at a much lower cost of living. I was paying US$1,300 for my LA studio. Now I have a treehouse for US$400.”
Then she praised Bali as being Black- and LGBTQI-friendly.
The women encouraged others to come to Bali and live like digital nomads like themselves in their tweets.
Within 72-hours the tweets went viral and angered Indonesian authorities and locals, especially the Balinese lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, queer, and intersex community who took issue with Kristen praising Bali for being “LGBTQI-friendly” in one of the tweets.
Bali, which is one of the Indonesian island provinces, is not LGBTQI-friendly.
By Tuesday night, January 19, authorities arrested the two women who had to gather up their belongings and abandon the dog they adopted, reported the New York Times.
Indonesian authorities arrested the two women January 21 in the middle of the night, detained them, and put them on the next flight home to Los Angeles, California.
The couple was accused of “unsettling the public,” working in Indonesia without paying taxes, and overstaying their visas.
Kristen extended the women’s visas December 22 to January 24, according to the Bali Regional Office of the Ministry of Law and Human Rights January 19 news release.
“Regarding my tweets that went viral and the Indonesian people I have offended, it was never my intention to disrespect Indonesia culture, especially Balinese culture. I made a public Twitter thread about my experience and it was a mistake,” Kristen wrote.
Kristen maintained her innocence stating in her apology, “I left Bali being charged for ZERO crimes, and ZERO taxes or fines. I was suspected of unsettling the public with my statements and my punishment was deportation.”
Many digital nomads play the visa game entering a county on a tourist visa rather than a business visa to avoid paying taxes in the country and back home, BuzzFeed News cited OneZero’s report.
Kristen went on stating that she wanted to take accountability for her actions and that she meant no harm. However, she maintained her innocence, attempted to squash rumors on social media, and spoke out about the hate speech she received daily online since the couple’s deportation.
The women’s lawyer, Erwin Siregar, told the Times, that he did not believe they deserved to be deported and that they had not broken any laws. Their intentions publishing the guide and their consulting services was to help Bali’s tourism industry after the COVID-19 restrictions were lifted.
“They are good people,” Erwin told the newspaper. “They can persuade tourists to come to Indonesia after the pandemic is over without a cent of payment. We should thank them, not deport them.”
Days before the couple’s visas were set to expire, they boarded a plane January 21 from Bali to Jakarta, Indonesia’s capital city. They transferred to a plane bound for Southern California with a stopover in Tokyo, Japan, reported the Times.
Kristen will not be allowed back into the country for six months, reported Coconuts.
Indonesia’s Tourism Jewel
Bali is one of the most famous islands of Indonesia’s archipelago that is made of more than 17,000 islands located in Southeast Asia and Oceana.
The island is well-known for its resorts, beaches, coral reefs, volcanic mountains, rice patties, and friendly people.
It sounds like paradise and pictures are even more enticing, which is why millions of Americans, Europeans, Australians and even Indonesian travelers visit the island every year.
More than six million travelers from abroad and 10 million from Indonesia visited Bali in 2019, reported the Times.
In 2020, the island received 1.1 million foreign tourists, nearly all of the travelers were before the pandemic.
The Times noted it was a drop from nearly 2.9 million during the same time the year before. Domestic travel figures were not available.
“Tourism has become the dominant work for most people,” Ricky Putra, chairman of the Bali Hotels Association, told the Times.
Struggling Through the Pandemic
The global pandemic has devastated Bali economically.
More than half of the island’s economy is based on tourism with a quarter of businesses support tourism, such as transportation and food supply to hotels and restaurants, reported the Times.
As soon as the pandemic hit thousands were laid off from hotels and other tourism businesses. A lucky few stayed on as skeleton crew to maintain operations.
Indonesia limited travelers from the worst-hit countries after the World Health Organization officially announced the global pandemic March 11, 2020. Within weeks the country’s officials shut its borders to all foreign travelers.
Two months later, Indonesian authorities shut down nearly all domestic travel. Some business travelers who tested negative for the coronavirus were allowed to travel, reported the newspaper.
Indonesia is the second hardest-hit country in Asia ranking 19 in the top 20 countries in the world suffering the most infection rates and deaths from COVID-19. India ranks number two behind the US, according to Worldometers.
Despite travel bans and people returning home to the countryside away from the tourist centers, COVID-19 has spread rapidly throughout Indonesia. As of February 2, total coronavirus, which causes COVID-19, cases in the country were 1,099,687. The number of new cases were at 10,379 with 30,581 deaths, according to Worldometers.
BuzzFeed News reported that Westerners in Bali account for a large share of COVID-19 safety violations and officials express frustration in a local report about foreigners flouting safety guidelines because they can pay the fine, which is $7 to a Westerner, but for locals, that is a lot of rupiah, 100,000 to be exact.
To stop the spread of COVID-19, Indonesian officials issued another travel ban on all international and domestic travel as of January 1.
Additionally, the country is currently on a strict lockdown, especially in Bali and Java, reported the AP.
Needless to say, Bali’s governor I Wayan Koster is desperate to reopen resorts, restaurants, tours, and all of the businesses that support the island’s tourism economy.
He attempted to reopen the island to domestic travelers last July, when the Times first reported on the pandemic’s impact on Bali’s tourism at the height of summer travel season, with an eye on welcoming foreign travelers in September.
That did not happen, Indonesia shut it down until the end of last year and it remains shutdown with low traffic at I Gusti Ngurah Rai International Airport in Bali.
A Travel Guide Now?
So, when Kristen posted the couple’s Bali travel guide January 16, and it went viral within three days it sparked controversy for a multitude of reasons.
It demonstrated Western privilege and stirred up the effects of tourism on Bali since it started attracting Westerners in the 20th century and developed a booming tourism industry. Indonesian and Balinese officials created an imbalance between the industry and protecting local culture and industries putting all of their eggs into tourism.
Many young people left their villages, mostly in northern Bali, lured by opportunity at the resorts in Southern Bali where they were educated about hospitality and tourism and got good paying jobs, reported the Times.
The average Balinese earns around $177 a month, reported Coconut. The pandemic has stripped even the most average income away from many Balinese. Many are subsisting on government rations and what they can grow and harvest or hunt and fish, which is not enough, reported the Times.
It is a far cry from $400 just to rent a treehouse for a month, which is what Kristen and Saundra paid for their treehouse.
Tourism also left a dearth of people to work the land back home creating hardship on the countryside. In the urban center, gentrification pushed generations of people out of their homes due to raising prices and wages that did not keep up near the resorts.
Developers built a plethora of resorts and luxury playgrounds, such as golf courses, over farmland and rice patties and disrupted temples. These are just some of the issues caused by Bali’s popularity and unchecked tourism.
An angry tweeter lashing out at Kristen whose account has since been deleted, asking, “Why do Americans think their peace of mind is worth gentrifying a whole island and pushing locals out of their own lands and into low-paying jobs?”
A mixture of desire for opportunity to earn a good living and resentment developed among Balinese in this new form of colonialism that has now left locals addicted and crushed by Bali’s number one industry.
“People are depending on it like opium,” a local leader of the northern Bali village Tembok Village, Dewa Komang Yudi, told the Times. “Tourism is fragile, and we have gone too far. We have been abandoning the fundamental things that mobilize the economy.”
Balinese are not the only ones hooked, Indonesia’s central government began a campaign to create 10 “new Bali” destinations in the islands to capitalize upon the Bali name, reported the Times.
Yudi, 33, was grateful for the unintended effects of the pandemic that brought about 400 unemployed resort workers home to the village where he lives.
“This is what we have been dreaming about,” he said.
Western Privilege and Ignorance
Kristen’s tweets smacked of Western privilege and ignorance about the reality for the Balinese in general and local Black and LGBTQI people.
Did these women do any research about Bali and Indonesia before transplanting themselves?
Did they really get to know the local community during their year of expatriate life on the island?
The couple travelled to Bali for a six-month stay, but due to the global pandemic forcing countries to close borders, they ended up extending their visas and settling in Bali, connecting with other Black expats and even adopting a dog.
The couple worked digitally and documented their adventures on popular social media platforms, such as Instagram and TikTok.
Kristen’s now deleted tweets expressed her frustration with job rejections in the US and living off savings “to make my business pop.” Tired Saundra and she booked one-way flights to Bali, she wrote.
It is unclear why the couple chose Bali. It is clear, by her tweets and photos they left hell and were in heaven for a while in their minds.
“This island has been amazing because of our elevated lifestyle at a much lower cost of living,” she wrote.
In her January 26 apology, Kristen attempted a double apology with accountability while also playing victim stating her tweets were picked apart, misinterpreted, and misconstrued via translation, reported Coconut.
Despite that she took “full accountability for the poor wording and the privileged language in my tweets.”
“I made a mistake. I made many mistakes writing and publishing the thread on my social media […] I am sorry to Balinese people for promoting travel to the island during this time. I ask you kindly [to] accept my apology and I will do my best to spread the message of ethical travel to Bali when it is safe,” she wrote.
Black- and LGBTQI-Friendly?
Racism is very much alive just as much as deep seeded homophobia in Bali and the rest of Indonesia.
There is a long, violent history of marginalization of Papuans in Indonesia, BuzzFeed News pointed out, and an ongoing racial justice campaign revived by, #papuanlivesmatter inspired by the US’s #blacklivesmatter movement, last year that landed demonstrators in jail. That caught the attention of Human Rights Watch who demanded the protestors’ release and some major media outlets picked up the story.
Papuans, who are Melanasian origin and are a unique ethnic group, are Indonesia’s Black community located in Indonesia’s largest and easternmost province. A majority of Melanesian people live in neighboring Papua New Guinea and other Pacific island nations, like Fiji and Vanuatu, reported Time magazine.
It is unclear if Kristen and Saundra’s race as Black women played into their swift deportation from Indonesia, but their queerness definitely played a role.
As the couple was being deported Kristen told reporters, “I have not overstayed my visa. I am not making money in Indonesian rupiah. I put out a statement about LGBT and I am deported because I am LGBT.”
Her assessment appeared to be true. So-much for being LGBTQI-friendly.
In a January 19 statement from the Bali regional office for the Ministry of Law and Human Rights, Chief Jamaruli Manihuruk cited Kristen’s tweet claiming Bali’s “LGBTQ-friendly” attitude.
“She stated that she could provide easy access to Bali through the recommended agency and offered the low living costs in Bali, that it is comfortable and LGBTQ-friendly,” Manihuruk said in the statement in Indonesian translated by Google Translate.
Homosexuality is not illegal in Indonesia, but it is not socially acceptable either. The temperature of acceptability varies from region to region in the world’s largest Muslim country from strict Islamic rule in Aceh to slightly more relaxed Hindu majority Bali.
There are no legal protections for LGBTQI people.
No matter what region, Indonesia has made headlines within the past decade with its crack down on LGBTQI citizens. The country has censured queer topics in media and education to an attempt to pass conversion therapy laws for the practice that harms queer and gender nonconforming people. Government officials have regularly publicly spread anti-gay rhetoric. Police have conducted raids on parties and guesthouses catering to LGBTQI travelers to jailing and dolling out sentences with harsh lashings for people convicted of being gay.
Days before Kristen and Saundra landed January 21, 2020 for their initial stay in Bali reports of Indonesian authorities investigating guesthouses on the island catering to LGBTQI travelers made headlines. That headline was followed by more raids on gay parties and whippings of alleged gay men throughout 2020. The year wrapped up with international human rights groups criticizing Indonesian authorities for the jailing an Instagram influencer, Millen Cyrus, a transgender woman, in a men’s prison.
The information was only as far as their internet connection and typing “LGBT Indonesia” into Google’s search box for the women to get a clue about the reality for queer Balinese and Black Indonesians.
Queer Balinese Response
LGBTQI Balinese were quick to criticize Kristen and Saundra on social media.
One tweeter with the handle @endbyrgmanesque pointed out Kristen’s contradiction, “You said Bali is queer-friendly but then you also said you were discriminated for being gay in a homophobic country.”
He continued, “Not only you played yourself but you also risk the actual queer people’s lives here who have to live discreetly … I hate entitled Westerners with all my heart!”
Indonesia’s most famous out lesbian musician Kai Mata told Coconut, “I wish these statements of Bali being queer-friendly was reality … Indonesian culture at large heavily shames those who are LGBTQ+, equating our love to a mental illness that needs to be cured or prayed away.
“Bali seems to just barely tolerate queer foreigners and Indonesians, as if it’s a generous gift to allow us existence, so long as we do so quietly and in the shadows.”
Kai faces death threats regularly as Indonesia’s most recognizable queer person.
Personally, responding to Kristen’s comments about Bali’s LGBTQI-friendliness in a January 19 Instagram post, the 22-year-old singer and queer activists posed holding a rainbow flag and wearing only a lace bra.
Written on her chest, “She’s very pretty hope she doesn’t get murdered.”
The post includes images of newspaper headlines about the state of LGBTQI life and tourism to the island.
In the post Kai talks about the discrimination against the deeply closeted queer Balinese community, the rise of anti-LGBTQI sentiment in Indonesia and Bali, her own reasons for moving to Bali, and her own privilege.
“I won’t call Bali queer friendly until Balinese and Indonesians feel they can come out in their lives until the local authorities put a halt into the raids/investigations on queer communities, and until we are not merely tolerated, but truly accepted,” she wrote in English opening the conversation on her Instagram that elicited 55 comments as of February 2.
Social psychologist Benny Siauw expressed concern to Coconut about the negative social effect on Balinese LGBTQI community due to Kristen’s calling Bali an LGBTQI-friendly destination and because it was one of the reasons her girlfriend and she were deported.
Citing a Pew Research Center study published last year Benny noted only 9% of Indonesians say homosexuality should be accepted.
“So, where should Indonesian queers go to if this leads to future homophobic persecutions?” Benny asked.
Kai agreed.
“I do worry this case with [Kristen] Gray is building a stronger presence of anti-LGBTQ+ sentiment in Bali and Indonesia,” Kai told Coconut.
Kristen apologized to Indonesia’s LGBTQI community for, “exposing you all with my off-base statements of the island of Bali being friendly to me and my queer partner.”
Coconut reported through many discussions Kristen expressed she learned a lot about a variety of subjects and was happy to have been made an example “for other Westerners to learn from” she wrote in her apology.
Book your next Intrepid women-only vacation with Girls That Roam Travel. Contact Heather Cassell at Girls That Roam Travel at 415-517-7239 or at .
To contract an original article, purchase reprints or become a media partner, contact .
