March madness
I did not want to go to Pride this year. I’ve been to many other Pride events in other countries but somehow going to Pride in Manila made me feel scared. It hasn’t been an easy month for the LGBT community — the Orlando massacre has left us shaken, disappointed, misplaced and uncertain, having the road to progress pulled out from under us.
“I’m too tired to be gay today,” I said on the car ride on the way to Lapu-Lapu Shrine. I spent most of the night before taking shots and singing my heart out to emo tunes, which meant I was incapacitated for most of Saturday. I just wanted to be grumpy and mad at life instead of the eternally happy, life-of-the-party persona that was usually associated with being gay. But there I was, seated between two really cute gay men from Hong Kong I met 10 minutes before, talking about the decline of gay bars in Asia. None of us knew what to expect. We were all Pride Manila virgins. There was an air of hesitation in the car. “There’s supposed to be a bazaar,” said one of the guys. “I hope there are drag queens,” I replied. “Do we know anyone else who’s going?” my friend BJ asked. He was the reason why we were all here; having convinced me to go to Pride 12 hours before in the middle of drunkenly consuming my tapsilog.
We got to the Lapu-Lapu Shrine a bit late. The parade had already started. Having attended the University of the Philippines, I have been to my fair share of rallies. They were mostly loud, obnoxious events where people tried to shove their ideals in your face. Those rallies were rowdy to the point of violence, and no fun for anyone. I was expecting more or less the same thing when I got to Pride, and I was surprised when that wasn’t the case. Rainbow flags were flying everywhere, and instead of people aggressively screaming broad generalizations into a megaphone, a DJ was playing Lady Gaga and Madonna. There were a lot more people than I expected (this year’s Pride drew in a record number of attendees) but everything was organized and no one was pushing each other around to get where they were supposed to be. In retrospect, the atmosphere of this year’s Pride March was both a good and bad reflection of what it’s like to be a member of the LGBT community in the Philippines — it’s okay to be gay as long as you don’t make a lot of noise about fighting for your rights. But who can blame them? Who can blame us? Our daily lives are a political statement — from our haircuts, to the way we dress, to the way we choose to walk down the streets — living in a culture of tolerance still feels a lot different from living in a culture of acceptance.
We spent the afternoon dancing while the sun was setting, eating rainbow-flavored lollipops, helping volunteers cover the stage with a giant rainbow flag, getting to know strangers and their stories, and taking photos of everything that made us feel pride. Sure, it wasn’t as big as the other Pride Parades happening in other parts of the world, where major city streets were closed down and people, regardless of sexual orientation, attended just to show support, but it still felt like home.
Sometime between hopping on the back of a truck to sing Born This Way and talking to a gay couple celebrating their one-year anniversary, I realized that this was the first time in a long time that I felt being gay didn’t mark me. Being at Pride meant that I could just be me; that for one afternoon, I could let go of that part of myself that I usually had to defend or live up to in my daily life.
On the car ride home, we were stopped by a policeman for a minor traffic violation. When he found out where he came from he asked us “Para saan ba yun? Hindi ko maintindihan.” We told him that we were marching to be treated as equals, “Kuya, para lahat ng tao pantay-pantay.” “Kailangan pa ba yun? Pantay-pantay naman tayong lahat eh,” he replied, and for an afternoon, in a little part of Metro Manila, it felt like it was true.
