DEE MENDOZA
Former President, Society of Transsexual Women of the Philippines
Empowering the Transpinay
By M.D. dela Cruz Tan
Photos by Diana Prado
PUBLISHED: JUNE 2009

"They say you will never know how it is to be someone unless you walk in their shoes. Try fitting in a size forty and then walk with your ankles suspended four inches above the ground while maintaining balance, grace and poise and most importantly, self-respect and dignity, and  you might just know a bit of what it’s like to be me.” Dee Mendoza

FACING LIFE

“I believed, and still do now, that no amount of physiological alteration was necessary to transform myself into a woman.  I think therefore I am. I have always been and will always be.  Surgeries would not make me more of a woman.  There’s no such thing as ‘more of a woman.’  There is just woman, and women came in various forms and shapes: tall, short, big, boyish, feminine, slim, flat-chested, full-bosomed, child-bearing, barren.  Cosmetic enhancement is just that,” Mendoza says.

Mendoza is cautious when using the term “transitioning,” that Western expression that means actually acting on changing oneself from the gender assigned at birth to the rightful gender one identifies himself or herself to be.

“When I transitioned exactly is hard to point out.  The Filipino way of transitioning does not fully ascribe to the Western definition. I knew I was a woman from a very young age.  Even though I was dressed as a man, it didn’t stop me from believing in my true self,” she says.  “It wasn’t until my early to mid 20s when I saw an endocrinologist and began my Hormone Replacement Therapy (HRT).  It was also then when I physically manifested what is traditionally known as a female appearance.  This was the time I started connecting the soul with the body.”

In a way, with her support system, Mendoza is still luckier than most.

“At first, I was the white elephant in the family.  I was certain they knew the changes that were going on, but they were mum about it.  One day, I wrote them a letter explaining my situation. My Mother’s first reaction upon reading it was, ‘I love you as you are.’  I’ve lost only one friend.  My guess is my ‘transition’ has shamed her.  Then again, perhaps she really wasn’t my friend.  I lost a job. It was there where I started wearing more pronounced female clothing. They, of course, did not admit that reason to be so.  After that, with an impressive scholastic and work records to back me up, I was on the job market for the first time in my over six years of professional life.  I thought it wouldn’t be hard to find a new job because of my experience and credentials.  I was wrong.  While it would’ve been true if I remained androgynous, what I hadn’t realized was that the conservative corporate world was more interested in what’s between the legs than what is in the brains.  Fortunately, now, I have a career in marketing with an equal opportunity employer.  I’ve been in the same company for almost six years now,” Mendoza says.

Interestingly, “I would have wished to be born non-GLBTQIA if only to escape the additional struggles we have to go through because of who we are.  I say additional because everyone faces challenges in life.  Ours are just a bit more because of our otherwise non-conventional identity,” Mendoza says.

Nonetheless, she realizes that “I would not have been the person I am today if it were not because of my history. I wouldn’t have known how much my family loves me despite it all.  I wouldn’t have met my friends who are the most understanding and compassionate people. I wouldn’t have been loved by a man who, despite myself, accepts, honors, respects and cherishes the love that I’m able to give. If I did not take the steps to be one with myself, I will never feel complete.  I’ll be a living zombie – empty and unfeeling,” Mendoza says.

This is why, largely, she has no regrets in life.

“My journey, though not smooth, is a fun ride.  The friend I lost should not really account for as a friend.  The job and the potential employers who turned me down didn’t get the chance to know an employee who would’ve impacted their growth.  The boy clothes I had to pack benefited the destitute more. No, I have no regrets for choosing my life.  I did it on my own terms.  I aligned my sails to the wind. Where the wind will take me? I don’t know.  I am certain, though, that it will be towards a place I have always wanted and am destined to be.”

If there’s one achievement she can highlight, Mendoza says it is womanhood.  “I take pride in the woman that I have become.  In fulfilling that, I have become a better person, a better citizen, a better friend, a better child, a better partner,” she says.  “A lot of people long to live extraordinary lives.  My life’s extraordinary.  Now, I just want be like a lot of people.”

GLBTQIA LIFE

If there is one thing GLBTQIAs themselves need to change, it is, for Mendoza, their lack of understanding.  “The reason why we started STRAP was because of the lack of understanding about transgenderism even in the GLBTQIA community.  Some GLBTQIA people seem to be hostile towards transpinays and transpinoys (even more hostile than their ‘straight’ counterparts). They say, ‘Why can’t you just act straight and still be gay?’   What most in the community do not understand is that transwomen are NOT gay men. Transgenderism is not a branch of homosexuality.  We are not cross-dressing gay men.  We are not effems – we are not effeminate gay men.  We are not pa-girls.  WE ARE GIRLS AND WOMEN who happen to be born in the same body most male-identified men were born in.  We can choose to love a man (hence making us straight (trans)women or love another woman (hence can we then only be called lesbian)),” Mendoza says.  “We are a marginalized group in a marginalized community.  We need all the support and encouragement we can get from everyone in the community.”

But Mendoza is inspired to continue doing good by “the women of STRAP.  We are a small group of courageous women and we inspire each other.  The STRAP girls are self-made, brave, outspoken, driven and can wear high stilettos while being all these.  We affirm, lift up, and encourage each other.  Our gay, lesbian, bisexual, queer, intersexed, and androgynous allies in the community are also very encouraging.  They believe in us, and listen to us.  They laid the foundation of a revolution that is soon to come,” she says.

Yet other sources of inspiration from Mendoza are her family (“I look at their great love for and even greater faith in me and I know that someday soon they will be proud of the change I will make in our society and of the change I have already made in myself”) and her boyfriend, Lawrence (“He was the first person to fully believe in me even when I have doubts about myself. His loving support is a source of strength.  His encouragement to reach for my fullest potential as a person and to advance the transgender cause in the Philippines, his adoptive country, is enough to keep the advocacy torch burning”).

After all is said and done, Mendoza wants to be remembered “for how I lived my life as a person, not as an advocate.  I want to inspire as I have been by the women before me and by those who were with me. There is no greater source of inspiration than the life of someone who has walked in their shoes,” she says.

And if given the chance to tell her story, she would summarize it, “to be told this way: Once upon a time, from a walled castle not so far away, there lived a princess.  One day, her fairy godmother tore her kingdom’s walls.  For the first time, she saw a different world beyond the shattered walls.  Her world was opened to a whole new dimension.  She was liberated.  She felt free.  She felt more at home with this new world than she ever did in the one she grew up in.  The possibility of living a whole new life like how she had always imagined it to be was now before her.  She pursued her desire to be a part of this promising brand new world.  She gave up a lot of things, but not the truth about, and the faith in, herself.  Then she lived happily ever after.”

Fortunately, that is not the end of it.