Ang Bakla, Bow.
On the Filipino Gay-dentity
By Frolic Tan Lopez

CROSSDRESSING ≠ BAKLA

Perhaps because of historicity of cross (if not gender) dressing, it is widely tolerated in the country.  As in the case of Abueva, it is not even only tolerated, “it is what’s considered ‘normal’ by everyone I know,” he says.  At least in “my home province, where gay identity expression is only ‘accepted,’ so to speak, by dressing up like the opposite sex.”

For QSS’s Tan, this may be because of a narrow-minded way of looking at gender.  “For many, there’s only male and female – if a man is gay, he then becomes ‘like a woman,’ so is expected to take womanly appearance; the reverse is true for a woman who is a lesbian,” he says, citing how interviews for his collection of gay narratives (which compose QSS) show that “this simplistic way of looking at gender expression is problematic for those who are gay, but do not see themselves as more like a woman and less of a man.   They just happen to be men who are into other men.”

Garcia says that “to equate Philippine society’s tolerance for public displays of transvestism with wholesale approval of homosexual behavior is naive, if not downright foolish.   While cross dressing exists in the Philippines, it is allowed only in certain social classes and within certain acceptable contexts – among entertainers and parloristas (beauticians) for instance, and during carnivalesque celebrations and fiestas.  In fact, Filipinos have yet to see transvestism as legitimate in ‘serious’ professions – male senators filibustering from the podium wrapped in elegant, two-toned pashminas, or CEOs strutting around open-air malls wearing power skirts and designer leather pumps.  Second, and more importantly, cross dressing is very different from homosexuality: the one does not necessarily entail the other.  Observed more closely, the two have very different stories to tell.”

For Garcia, the need to dress pa-mhinta can be seen as a reflection of homophobia – internal and external.

“If their society was truly tolerant of (male) homosexuality, then Filipinos would see not just flaming transvestites shrieking their heads off in TV sitcoms and variety shows, but local men, sissy or otherwise, Frenching and erotically manhandling each other in steamy ‘gay telenovelas.’  There would be as many gay pick-up bars as straight bars, and both the femmy pa-girl and butchy pa-mhin would be able to display affection in public.   At the heart of the idea of homosexuality is sex, no matter the sartorial style of the persons indulging in it.  Thus, to historicize homosexuality in the Philippines, we must recognize the fundamental difference between gender and sexuality. More specifically, we need to disarticulate the presentist and commonsensical connection between gender transitive behaviors and the identities of bakla, bayot, agi, and bantut,” he says.

INTO THE WEST

An interesting development in the local community is its identification with Western identity, for the lack of a localized one – a move that can be viewed as both good and bad.

Tan recalls interviewing self-identified gay people who were told to “act normal” so as not to be a “source of shame.”  “By normal, those telling these gay guys want them to look and act heterosexual – e.g. no cross-dressing, putting on of make-up, et cetera, all deemed as hindi nakakahiya (not shameful),” he says.  “This is because there’s this belief that dressing up as a woman (for a man) is shameful – an interesting way of looking, actually, at how people still view women in the Philippine society now, so that dressing up like one is seen as shameful.”

What is not well looked into – except by few, like Garcia and Michael L. Tan, formerly of the Health Action Information Network – is how the image of gay guys dressing up like heterosexuals is, in more ways than one, a Western construct.  Tan himself recalls how, in Australia for example, “it is more commonplace to be pa-mhinta than to be pa-girl (effeminate),” he says.  If, historically in the Philippines, the babaylan was pa-girl (in today’s standards), then “it can be said that it was the more generally accepted form of expression – until we were influenced by the West.”

Abueva believes this development, if it can be called that, is good.  “Living like a woman in the past, I was limited to dating ‘straight men,’” he says.  “A woman should only go for a man, after all – and that is true to gays who want to be like girls, too.”  When he turned pa-mhinta, however, Abueva started dating other pa-mhinta, facilitating gay to gay relationships “that actually last longer – my relationships with ‘straight men’ in the past only lasted until they found ‘real’ women,” he says.

The promotion of the straight acting, straight looking gay guy, however, created its own problems, including the “not shameful means of expression” belief; internal homophobia (those familiar with gay date sites are familiar with “No Effems Allowed” and “Only Str8-Looking, Acting Allowed”); and gender identity confusion (the term “bisexual,” for example, is locally widely used to refer to the heterosexual-looking gay guy, since the terms gay, bakla, et cetera refer to the pa-girl).

“Instead of helping clearly define gay-dentity, what we have here only adds to the complexity of expression,” Tan says.

And then there’s the annually celebrated gay pride month, celebrated every June, in time for the anniversary of the Stonewall riots.  Some history: In 1969, the New York Police Department (NYPD) raided the Stonewall Inn on Christopher Street in New York City – one of the then frequent raids of gay venues (members of the NYPD also shamed these gay guys by releasing their names to the media).  The clubbers, many of the African-Americans and Hispanics (many of them transgender and drag queens), were not willing to be abused by the NYPD, so they “led the charge” of fighting for gay rights there and then in an uprising that lasted for days.  When finally, completely dispersed, what was left was a legacy of fighting for, well, gay rights – even if it meant getting killed for it.

Without intending to belittle the contribution of Stonewall riots to gay rights advocacy in the Philippines, Tan believes its relevance in the Philippines needs to be contextualized.  “It is devoid of the Filipino gay experience, unfortunately,” he says.  Thus, with the community holding annual celebrations every June of every year, “aligning the local celebration of gay rights with the Stonewall celebrations in the US, it has ended as nothing but an annual gay party.  All glitter, no substance.”

Tan wonders why “we can’t come up with our own Mardi Gras a la Sydney, celebrated every February or March, which has been localized so that it’s relevant to not just Sydney-siders, but Australians as a whole,” he says.  “Hong Kong did, and it’s not mimicking the Stonewall celebrations.”

END OF THE RAINBOW

Finding the identity is important, as more and more people identify as gay (Generically used here to refer to the community – Ed).  According to the 2005 HIV Estimates in the Philippines, a consensus report released by the Department of Health, World Health Organization, the United Nations Joint Programme on the HIV/AIDS (UNAIDS), and the Field Epidemiology Training Program Alumni Foundation, the number of males who have sex with males (MSMs) in the Philippines is from 379,799 to 804,280 – actually a far cry from the more generally accepted estimate of 10% of the population as gay.

No matter the real number, though, Tan believes that one lesson needs to be imparted: “That gay-dentity expression is as varied as the number of gay people,” he says.

Experientially, Abueva agrees.  “The way I see it, if someone likes me as Dino Abueva, they should accept me for me, no matter how I look,” he says.  “After all, irrespective of appearances, whether I’m pa-mhinta or pa-girl, I am, in the end, just another self-identified gay guy.”

This is, he admits nonetheless, easier said than done.

As for Tan, for as long as “this is easier said than done, the Filipino gay-dentity will remain hard to define.  There needs to be an acceptance on the differences of individuals (whether gay or non-gay), and how these differences are expressed differently, too.  Time and again we are told that every one is unique – and it’s true, not just in our identities, but in expressing these identities.  Unless the local gay community lives this (truth), we will continue defining ourselves in (other group of people’s) measurements.  And in that sad scenario, we will never find the Filipino gay-dentity.”