In the Philippines where the majority are Catholic, those who are queer won’t always find support from their immediate communities. They end up creating their own.
PRIDE. Members of the LGBT community join a Pride March in Pasay City, Metro Manila, Philippines, June 25, 2022. File photo by Lisa Marie David/Reuters They’re quick to come together in the face of discrimination, such as an incident last year in one of the country’s poshest business districts.
Transwoman Louis Marasigan recalled to us that while shopping at a store in Taguig City, in October of 2022, she was asked by a store clerk to use the male fitting room. Even after saying that she’s a woman and that she would be uncomfortable using the male fitting room, the store still barred her from the female fitting room. The clerk insisted that allowing her would make the other customers uneasy – even if she was the only customer waiting at the fitting room at the time. The store manager, who also happened to be gay, refused to help her. In tears, Louis recounted the incident on TikTok where it quickly went viral, drawing widespread reactions from the queer community. TRANS RIGHTS. Louis Marasigan’s experience at a store in Taguig City’s posh business district went viral online, sparking renewed calls for the passage of the SOGIE Equality Bill. Screenshots from social media posts Within hours, her TikTok video was reposted on Twitter and retweeted thousands of times. At its peak, there were at least 25,000 tweets about the incident in a day. The support spilled over to the physical world. People started to reach out to Louis to send her comfort food, while business owners invited her to their stores. Most important to her was the legal support she was offered by concerned groups and allies. “The biggest help to me was the legal advice, as well as the support network I was introduced to by Ms. Mela Habijan,” she told us., crowned the first Miss Trans Global in 2020, is a staunch advocate of LGBTQIA+ rights. The online furor prompted the store to reach out to Louis eventually. They’ve since apologized and clarified that they have gender-sensitive policies in place and were committed to retraining their staff about them. But the trauma will likely remain, Louis said, recalling the volume of hate she received online. “I received more hate messages after it went viral…especially on Facebook. Some even threatened to kill me,” she said. After the incident, Louis said she was anxious to return to Taguig City for a while, fearing that the threats may actually turn real. “If only there was a law against discrimination, there would definitely have been a case against the store.”Isolation and exclusion are nothing new to the LGBT community in the Philippines. “For members of the LGBT community, we’ve gotten used to living in a society where we’re always isolated and excluded, so we’re almost always trying to find, search or create communities. That’s where social media has become particularly effective: connecting us to people with similar values,” said Reyna Valmores of the gay rights advocacy group Bahagari. But surveys show otherwise, as some said that the Philippines is one of the most LGBT-friendly countries in Asia. Aby the Pew Research Center showed that at least 73% of Filipinos think homosexuality should be accepted by society. This has been the same percentage since 2013, and the earliest conduct of the same survey in 2002 shows that acceptance was already at 64%. The Philippines looks like an anomaly in Pew Research Center’s survey. Where data shows a high positive correlation between the country’s wealth and its acceptance of LGBT, the Philippines is almost as accepting of the queer community as its wealthier counterparts. Other surveys tell a more complicated relationship between the LGBT community and the predominantly Catholic country. A said that at least 60% of Filipinos know someone who is gay, but only 2 out of 10 Filipinos accept same-sex marriage. added that 60% of Filipinos agree that the LGBT community experience discrimination and 55% are in favor of passing the law protecting their rights. But there are reservations with this support: 47% think transgenders shouldn’t be allowed in female restrooms and 48% do not agree that they should be allowed to change their official documents, such as birth certificates, according to their gender identity. This is on top of the continued discrimination LGBT persons face on the ground, which is documented in differentThis is why advocates like Reyna always emphasize that the Pride movement, as colorful and vibrant as it has become, is still a protest against the systemic discrimination of the LGBT community in the Philippines. Over the years, they have leveraged the power of social media to spark collective action and challenge the status quo. Many organizations like Bahaghari, have relied on the supportive and social media-savvy queer community online to push the gay rights movement forward. “Members of the community who also want to push for their rights, they know how effective social media can be,” Reyna told us, but with the caveat that activism on the ground is still important. “After all, not every Filipino has access to the internet.”a law that punishes discrimination on the basis of one’s sexual orientation, gender identity, or expression. First filed in Congress in the year 2000, the bill is yet to be enacted into law, becoming the longest-running bill to be under Senate interpellation in the Philippines. Now sitting in the legislative body for 23 years, it’s surpassed even the controversial Reproductive Health Bill, which took 15 years to pass into law. The bill was first filed in 2000 by the late senator Miriam Defensor-Santiago and former Akbayan representative Loretta Rosales. Santiago’s bill focused on
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