June was "Pride Month" among the LGBTQIA+ community, commemorating the uprising at a homosexual bar in New York City, the Stonewall Inn, when the queer community stood up to frequent police raids, arrests and brutality. Today, Pride Month is everywhere. Large corporations run rainbow-themed advertisements on TV and social media, and cities large and small hold Pride festivities. But we also remember those who came before us and strive together to create a more inclusive and secure future for all of us.
June was also "Father’s Month” -- celebrating paternal connections, and the role of dads in society. Since the Middle Ages, the 19th of March has been observed as Saint Joseph's Day in Catholic nations. Artist Sonora Smart Dodd started Father's Day, and it was first observed on the third Sunday of June in 1910 in the United States. Now, the day is observed on numerous dates across the world, and each area has its unique rituals for celebrating fatherhood.
Pride is an emotion that is firmly in the realm of fatherhood. It is also something that the LGBTQIA+ community has been normalizing, in order to help people accept themselves. In a recent episode of Pamilya Talk, we spoke to presidential candidate Ka Leody De Guzman and his son Dexter about how a father and a son grow together in an LGBTQIA+-supporting household. It is hard for many members of the LGBTQIA+ community to see eye to eye with their fathers in the Philippines, because of a multitude of reasons – however Ka Leody shared with us how the acceptance and the love of his son did not change because of his son’s sexual preference.
The Philippines has long been known as a gay-friendly country though the question of LGBTQIA+ rights is often pit against the country’s deeply Catholic background. Yet, it is interesting to note that in pre-colonial times, we understood the connection of the masculine, the feminine, and the inexplicable. An anthropological and ethnolinguistic study on Baybayin, the ancient Filipino language, touched on the point that the glyphs used for lakbay meaning to journey, were the same used in bakla. So we may take this to mean that bakla is a journey we all set out upon, yet it is one that is internal and soulful as opposed to the external and physical lakbay. This new perspective has shed light on how babaylan priestesses may have been considered LGBTQIA+ and underscores how colonial powers in the form of the Catholic church oppressed them and tried to erase them from history.
Pride Month and Father’s Day in the Philippines have been inexorably linked, as pride is something that fathers have for their children – ideally, regardless of their sexual orientation. Fathers, like mothers, play an important role in the emotional development of their children. Children turn to their dads to establish and enforce ground rules. They also turn to their fathers to give both physical and emotional stability. Children desire to please their dads, and an attentive father encourages inner growth and strength. According to research, when dads are loving and supportive of their children, it has a significant impact on their cognitive and social development. It also promotes general well-being and self-confidence. Fathers shape not only who we are on the inside, but also how we interact with others as we mature. What a person looks for in other people is influenced by how a parent treats his child. Friends, lovers, and spouses will all be picked depending on how the child understood the meaning of his or her father's connection. The patterns that a father establishes in his connections with his children will influence how his children interact with others.
In numerous Pride celebrations around the world, there are allies who give out “Free Dad Hugs” for those of the LGBTQIA+ who have sadly not received the love, the care, and the respect they deserve from the members of their own families. The presence, acceptance, and love of a father is something that shapes lives for the better, and even standing in as a Dad Who Loves You is a powerful and mighty gesture of love and progress.
When fathers and father figures like Ka Leody live their truth as parents to an LGBTQIA+ son, we are hopeful that not only will our country continue to be considered gay-friendly, but that soon we will be fierce protectors of LGBTQIA+ rights and lives. In fact, as Dexter mentioned, it is a boon to have LGBTQIA+ children, as more often than not, they are the ones who stay to take care of their parents in old age. I see this in many of my friends’ families with LGBTQIA+ children, and I know this to be true. As mentioned above, lakbay, literally translated, is a voyage away from your typical environment to ponder, explore, and better understand oneself. Bakla is the interior path to completeness that leads to the realization that you are complete within yourself. Because you are whole, you may share and offer gifts to your kapwa.
As we gear up for the next six years of life under the Marcoses yet again, we do have a lot to hope for, in terms of the progress to be made. Sen. Imee R. Marcos' Senate Bill 412 filed in 2019 aimed to broaden the list of illegal acts of discrimination against the LGBT community while also prescribing steps to prevent such actions. The arrest of a transgender lady by police after she used the women's restroom at the Araneta Center was "an obvious act of discrimination that contradicts Quezon City's Gender-Fair Ordinance and enrage[d] me," Marcos said in a past statement.
"In the Senate measure, harassment of LGBT members by law enforcement is a legal infraction," Marcos noted. The measure sought to shield transgender women from public humiliation by mandating gender-neutral restrooms, such as those designated for people with impairments. The onus lies on us therefore as allies to continue fighting for the rights of the LGBTQIA+, transcending party lines, political affiliations, and personal agendas.
With the Department of Education recently allowing two transgender woment to march as their identified gender in recent college graduation rites, there is much being done in this space that allies should be proud of. Yet the fight is not over – not until society answers for the wrongs visited upon those in the LGBTIQIA+ community for the sheerly arbitrary reason for who they choose to love. As they said in the Pride March, Makibeki. 'Wag ma shokot.
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