Transgender student wants own identity in yearbook

MANILA, Philippines — A transgender student from Ateneo de Manila University (ADMU) started an online petition to allow transgender students to appear in the gender they identify with in their yearbook.

Rica Salomon, a senior Interdisciplinary Studies major, started the petition in response to the rule of Aegis Administration Board that students must portray their biological sex in the yearbook, reports Bianca Martinez in an article published by The Guidon, ADMU's official student publication.

"The rule is highly discriminating especially to one’s gender identity. Gender identity is one’s internal understanding of one’s self whether they identify themselves as a man or a woman; and transgender individuals are people whose gender identity is incongruent to the sex and physicality that they were born in," Salomon said in the petition.

Though born a male, Salomon identifies as a female and wants to appear in the yearbook as such. Some students and faculty members have already signed the online petition.

The Aegis Administration Board established the rules and guidelines that have been followed strictly in previous years.

"We don’t always have to follow the way we do things traditionally," Ray Santos, Sanggunian Seniors’ Alliance Representative for Aegis, was quoted as saying in the report.

Santos also said the approval of the petition will signify the Aegis Administration Board’s acknowledgement that times have changed.