Barack Obama's former nanny, a transgender woman named Evie, has been overwhelmed after being catapulted from anonymous slum-dweller to local celebrity in Indonesia.

TV crews have been trooping in and out of her tiny concrete home in Jakarta. Estranged relatives have said they want to meet up. She has even had a promising job offer.

Evie, 66, who was born male but considers herself a woman, came to prominence after a recent article by the Associated Press about the struggles of transgender people in this predominantly Muslim nation.

Her life has been hard and in 1985, after enduring years of abuse and ridicule, she decided would be better off just trying to fit in. She stopped dressing as a woman and has since eked out a living handwashing clothes.

But since the article, she has been showered with attention. Though the interest is down to her long-ago connection to Obama, she hopes it might generate more openness on gender issues.

"After living without hope for so long, like I was locked in a dark room, I now feel like the door is open," said Evie, who like many Indonesians goes by one name.

"It's like the winds of heaven are blowing hope for me. Even my relatives who never cared about me are now coming to see me."

Though many newcomers to Indonesia are surprised by the quasi-acceptance and pervasiveness of transgender people – often seen on TV or working in salons – they are usually the object of scorn.

"I realise this won't last long," she said. "But I think my story might help open people's eyes so they will respect us more."

An American teacher at Saint Peter's Catholic School in Jakarta, Philip Myers, was so touched by Evie's story that he offered her a job as a cook and maid.

"I really don't care if she wants to come in wearing a dress, or pants. The outward appearance is not the issue. Her heart is what's important," Myers said.

Evie was excited by the idea. But for now, she is too overwhelmed to think about it.

During a break between TV interviews at her home in a tightly packed Jakarta slum on Thursday, she said she hoped he would be patient.

She also said she would love to hear from her former charge – but there has been no contact yet from the White House.

Evie started caring for eight-year-old "Barry" Obama in 1969 when he lived in Indonesia's capital with his mother, Ann Dunham, who had arrived in the country two years earlier after marrying her second husband, Indonesian Lolo Soetoro.

Evie played with Obama and collected him from school. She worked in the home dressed as a man and says she never let young Barry see her in women's clothes, though neighbours remember seeing her leave work in female garb.

The TV crews have been primarily interested in that brief period, Evie said, before Obama's family left Indonesia in the early 1970s and before she resorted to prostitution when work as household help dried up.

Those were the days of dictatorship under General Suharto.

In the years that followed, she and her friends faced regular beatings from security guards and soldiers.

They were often rounded up, loaded into trucks, and taken to a field where they were beaten.

When one day in 1985 she saw the body of one of her friends in a sewage canal, she decided enough was enough.

She gave away all of her dresses and other female clothes: she was ready to live as a man.

Neighbours have been flabbergasted by all of this week's fuss surrounding Evie.

"They came with TV cameras and interview her as though she is a star," said Ayi Hasanah, a 50-year-old woman who lives nearby. "Hopefully this can change her life. Because as far as I can see, her life is very hard."