LGBT culture in the Philippines
Lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender (LGBT) people in the Philippines have a distinctive culture but limited legal rights. Gays and lesbians are generally tolerated, if not accepted, within Filipino society, but there is still widespread discrimination. The most visible members of the Filipino LGBT culture, the Bakla, are a distinct group in the Philippines.
According to the 2002 Young Adult Fertility and Sexuality Survey, 11% of sexually active Filipinos between the ages of 15 and 24 have had sex with someone of the same sex.[1]
Filipino poet and critic Lilia Quindoza Santiago has speculated that Filipino culture may have a more flexible concept of gender because kasarian, the Tagalog word for "gender", is defined in less binary terms than the English word gender.[2] Kasarian means "kind, species, or genus".[3] The English word gender originally also meant "kind".[citation needed]
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[edit] Bakla
A bakla is a gay man who displays feminine mannerisms, dresses as a women, or identifies as a woman. The term itself is not the equivalent of the English term "gay",[4] but bakla are the most culturally visible subset of gay men in the Philippines. They are often considered a third gender, embodying femaleness (pagkababae) in a male body.[5][6] The term bakla is sometimes used in a derogatory sense, although bakla people have largely embraced it.
Bakla individuals are socially and economically integrated into Filipino society and are considered an important part of society. The stereotype of a bakla is a parlorista, a cross-dresser who works in a beauty salon.[7] Miss Gay Philippines is a beauty pageant for bakla.
[edit] Slang terms for LGBT people and concepts
In the Philippines, the term gay is used in reference to any LGBT person. For Filipino gays, the Tagalog phrase paglaladlad ng kapa ("unfurling the cape"), or more commonly just paglaladlad ("unfurling" or "unveiling") refers to the coming-out process. Tibo, T-Bird and tomboy are derogatory terms for butch lesbians just as bakla is for effeminate gay men. Some lesbians, both butch and femme, use the terms magic or shunggril to refer to themselves.[4] Neutral slang terms for gay men include billy boy, badette, bading, and paminta (straight-acting gay man).
While many of these terms are generally considered derogatory, they are sometimes used casually or jokingly within the Filipino gay and lesbian community. For example, gay men often refer to their gay friends as bakla when talking to each other.
[edit] LGBT rights
Although legislation supporting same-sex marriage in the Philippines has been proposed several times to the Philippine legislature, none has ever been passed.[8]
The Philippine Commission on Elections (COMELEC) disqualified the Filipino LGBT political party Ang Ladlad from running in the 2007 general election when COMELEC concluded that Ang Ladlad did not have nationwide membership.[9] COMELEC again refused Ang Ladlad's petition for permission to run in the 2010 elections, this time on grounds of "immorality".[10] However, on 8 April 2010 the Supreme Court of the Philippines overturned the decision of COMELEC and allowed Ang Ladlad to participate in the May 2010 elections.[11]
[edit] Swardspeak
Swardspeak, or "gay lingo", is a cant slang derived from Englog (a Tagalog-English pidgin) and is used by a number of homosexuals in the Philippines.[12] Swardspeak uses elements from Tagalog, English, Spanish and Japanese, as well as celebrities' names and trademark brands, giving them new meanings in different contexts.[13] It is largely localized within gay communities and uses words derived from local languages or dialects, including Cebuano, Ilonggo, Waray, and Bicolano.
The use of Swardspeak once immediately identified the speaker as homosexual, making it easy for people of that orientation to recognize each other. This created an exclusive group among its speakers and helped them resist cultural assimilation. More recently, though, straight people have also started to use this way of speaking, particularly in industries dominated by gays, such as the fashion and film industries.
[edit] Filipino LGBT organizations
- Barangay Los Angeles: Barangay Los Angeles, or Barangay LA, is the oldest, most established Filipino LGBT organization in the United States currently serving the Los Angeles Filipino LGBTQ community.
- PUP Kabaro: a leading gender equality activist organization at the Polytechnic University of the Philippines
- UP Babaylan: Established in 1992, UP Babaylan is the first LGBT student organization in the Philippines. They remain as the only LGBT support and advocacy student group in the University of the Philippines Diliman (Metro Manila)
- Doll House: group for open-minded individuals based in the Ateneo de Manila University
- ProGay: gay rights organization (Metro Manila)
- Lesbian and Gay Legislative Advocacy Network (LAGABLAB)
- Can’t Live in the Closet: lesbian activist group (Metro Manila)
- Lesbian Advocates Philippines Philippine (LeAP) (Metro Manila)
- Lunduyan ng Sining ("Sanctuary of Art"): registered lesbian arts organization providing a venue for lesbians to showcase their art; it has produced a lesbian literary and art folio entitled What These Hands Can Do and regularly holds monthly music, film or art performances at Mag:net Katipunan, Quezon City
- IWAG: gay social support group (Davao City)
- GAHUM: gay support and advocacy (Cebu City)
- Rainbow Rights Project (R-Rights): an NGO that serves as a legal & policy think tank dedicated to LGBT issues
- Society of Transsexual WOMEN of the Philippines (STRAP) (Metro Manila)
- Order of St. Aelred: spiritual gay center (Metro Manila)
- AKOD: gay support group (Davao Oriental State College of Science and Technology)
- Gorgeous and Young (GAY): gay support group
- Philippine Forum on Sports, Culture, Sexuality and Human Rights (TEAM PILIPINAS): promoting human rights, sexual and gender diversity and equality through sports, culture and recreation (Philippines and global)
- UPLB Babaylan: student LGBT organization and support group at the University of the Philippines Los Baños; promotes gender equality within the university, among the student body, and beyond; holds activities such as Pink Flicks (a film festival showing movies which revolve around gender issues), symposia, educational discussions and tie-ups with other LGBT organizations
- Task Force Pride (TFP) Philippines: is a network of Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual and Transgender (LGBT) groups and individuals, as well as LGBT-friendly groups/individuals, that seeks to promote positive visibility for the LGBT community.
Founded in 1999, it is the official organizing network of the annual Pride March. Task Force Pride
[edit] See also
- Category:Philippine LGBT-related films
- LGBT rights in the Philippines
- Non-westernized concepts of male sexuality
[edit] References
- ^ "Survey shows young Filipinos are opening up homosexual activities". 23 July 2003. Archived from the original on 1 April 2005. http://web.archive.org/web/20050401135347/http://www.yafs.com/downloads/same-sex.pdf. Retrieved 5 December 2009.
- ^ Garcia, J. Nelia C. (2000). "Performativity, the bakla and the orienting gaze". Inter-Asia Cultural Studies 1 (2): 265–281.
- ^ “Kasarian.” Tagalog-English Dictionary. 2nd. ed. 1986.[Full citation needed]
- ^ a b Garcia, J. Neil C. (2008). Philippine gay culture: binabae to bakla, silahis to MSM. University of the Philippines Press. ISBN 978-971-542-577-3.
- ^ Aggleton, Peter (1999). Men who sell sex: international perspectives on male prostitution and HIV/AIDS. Temple University Press. p. 246. ISBN 1566396697. http://books.google.com/books?id=6WYZ0wNpZfIC&lpg=RA3-PA241&ots=zQewNjx8BL&dq=bakla&lr&pg=RA3-PA246#v=onepage&q=bakla&f=false. Retrieved 5 June 2010.
- ^ Casabal, Norberto V (2008). "Gay Language: Defying the Structural Limits of English Language in the Philippines". Kritika Kultura (11): 89–120. doi:10.3860/kk.v0i11.754. http://www.philjol.info/index.php/KK/article/view/754. Retrieved 27 January 2011.
- ^ Benedicto, Bobby (2008). "The Haunting of Gay Manila: Global Space-Time and the specter of Kabaklaan". GLQ: A Journal of Lesbian and Gay Studies 14 (2-3): 317–338.
- ^ LeiLani Dowell (17 February 2005). "New Peoples Army recognizes same-sex marriage". Workers World Party. http://www.workers.org/world/2005/npa_0224/. Retrieved 17 November 2008.
- ^ Aning, Jerome (1 March 2007). "Gay party-list group Ladlad out of the race". Philippine Daily Inquirer. http://newsinfo.inquirer.net/inquirerheadlines/nation/view/20070301-52263/Gay_party-list_group_Ladlad_out_of_the_race. Retrieved 18 January 2010.
- ^ "CHR backs Ang Ladlad in Comelec row". ABS-CBN News. 15 November 2009. http://www.abs-cbnnews.com/nation/11/15/09/chr-backs-ang-ladlad-comelec-row. Retrieved 10 December 2009.
- ^ "SC allows Ang Ladlad to join May poll". ABS-CBN News. 8 April 2010. http://www.abs-cbnnews.com/nation/11/15/09/chr-backs-ang-ladlad-comelec-row. Retrieved 18 May 2011.
- ^ Empress Maruja (27 July 2007). "Deciphering Filipino Gay Lingo". United SEA. http://unitedsea.blogspot.com/2007/07/deciphering-filipino-gay-lingo.html. Retrieved 23 December 2010.
- ^ Jessica Salao (30 April 2010). "Gayspeak: Not for gays only". The Philippine Online Chronicles. http://www.thepoc.net/thepoc-features/buhay-pinoy/buhay-pinoy-features/6340-gayspeak-not-gor-gays-only.html. Retrieved 23 December 2010.
[edit] External links
- Barangay Los Angeles - Barangay Los Angeles, or Barangay LA, is the oldest, most established Filipino LGBT organization in the United States currently serving the Los Angeles Filipino LGBTQ community.
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This article's use of external links may not follow Wikipedia's policies or guidelines. Please improve this article by removing excessive or inappropriate external links, and converting useful links where appropriate into footnote references. (December 2009) |
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Wikimedia Commons has media related to: LGBT in the Philippines |
- Outrage Magazine - a publication for the gay, lesbian, bisexual, transgender, queer, intersex and ally (GLBTQIA) communities in the Philippines; readily available online as a webzine.
- Lunduyan ng Sining Website
- Diversity and Equality Philippines - supporting human rights of diverse sexual orientations and gender identities in the Philippines; website of Philippine Forum on Sports, Culture, Sexuality and Human Rights (TEAM PILIPINAS) as well.
- Transsexual Philippines magazine blog
- Weeqender LGBTQI community news and travel magazine blog
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