The heart of gayness

It was my turn to be "lead discussant" in my class in Philippine Art and Society. I was assigned Patrick Alcedo's "Sacred Camp: Transgendering Faith in a Philippine Festival" (Journal of Southeast Asian Studies 38(1) pp. 107-132, February 2007). Less than ten minutes after I started talking, the teacher asked why I seemed so uncomfortable with the article and asked someone else to continue leading the discussion.

The article was about Augusto Diangson, a retired school teacher and World War II veteran from Kalibo, Aklan who described himself as belonging to the "third sex." Since the early 1980s and every year until he died of cancer in 2002, he dressed as a showgirl in a bustier and thong, wore make-up to make him look like a white woman, and joined the Ati-atihan Festival in honor of the Sto. Niño.

According to Alcedo, Diangson said in an interview that he did this as his "panaad" or promise to the Sto. Niño, whom he credits with saving his life in the 1980s. The Catholic Church in Kalibo, or at least the bishop named Monsignor Gabriel Reyes, said that "There will be no Ati-atihan if Tay Augus does not come out; he has already become an institution."

Father Alex Meñez, a priest from Kalibo, was quoted as saying that, "During Ati-atihan, Tay Augus flaunted his sexual orientation. Kalibo accepted him, and the Church did not say anything against him, because what he did was truly an expression of faith." Alcedo called this transgendering this "sacred camp."

Alcedo stated that Diangson "was able to claim membership in the Roman Catholic community of Kalibo, Aklan...while also negotiating the Church's institution of heterosexuality." He claimed that Diangson successfully challenged the values of the local Church by his act of dressing and dancing in drag for one day, for 20 years. My reaction was: That's successful? To be tolerated for one day in a year? The rest of the year he was the "classy" agi, educated, devout, his homosexuality invisible. Diangson took pains to distinguish himself from the beauty parlor "bakla."

Alcedo wrote: "As Roman Catholic, Tay Augus believed that he was doubly a sinner: As a human being with an original sin, which he inherited from Adam and Eve, and as an agi, who found himself outside the Church's heterosexual fold. Tay Augus moved away from the practice of procreation and therefore became an 'unnatural' member of the Church. I read the panaad he observed throughout the year as devout acts of faith by an individual fervently coming to terms with a sin he was born with by virtue of being a Roman Catholic, and of another sin committed by his sexual orientation." He concluded that, "Because of the panaad in his transgendering, an act of faith recognized by those older ladies and priests, Tay Augus became a religious figure who carried the sins of others, a mimicry of Christ's martyrdom."

I was aghast. Because he was a homosexual, Diangson considered himself a sinner everyday until he died. "How can an article promoting gay self-hatred have such a celebratory tone?" I blurted out in class. My teacher and classmates looked at me strangely. The teacher said I should open my mind and allow for the possibility that Mr. Diangson really changed the Catholic Church in Kalibo. Maybe.

That does not change my opinion that he lived a very sad life. I wondered if the one day in a year he dressed as a showgirl was the only day he allowed his true self to show. I realized that I still believe that anything less than complete freedom to be is oppression. There should be no need for any negotiation in order to be.

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