Coming OUT: Proud of the LGBT community, proud to be an LGBT activist

A month before the Pride March this December, I reminisced the past few Prides I have been to in the last years. By the way, there are two Pride events every year here in the Philippines. One is I think the official Pride parade every June because it is commemorative of the Stonewall Riots, and one every December during the week of the International Human Rights Day. All pride marches I have attended were colorful, gay and proud.

This year, I supported the Bayan Muna and Makabayan contingent in the Pride March in Quezon City. Our throats were parched from screaming and chanting “We’re out, we’re gay, free the 43 today!,” “Lesbian rights are human rights, gay rights are human rights!” I guess everything paid off and our contingent won the “Most Spirited Contingent” award. Last year, we won three awards: “Most Spirited Contingent,” “Biggest Contingent,” and Liza Maza as Pride Queen.

Bemz Benedito of Ladlad asked me while there was an ongoing program: “Tinay, maraming nagtatanong, kung lesbiyana ka raw ba?” And I said, “Anu ba, bakla. Kakaririn ko ba ang pagsuporta sa LGBT kung hindi.” But her question was so discomforting that I asked myself, “Am I really out of the closet?”

For the past years, I, as a person, have been known as many things — a nerd-looking CAT officer during high school, a youth leader, a woman leader, but yes, never a simple lesbian activist. During the first few years of my being an activist, I have deliberately closeted myself, despite open secrets of relationships with fellow lesbians. Call it internal homophobia, but I attribute it more to a struggling identity in a social movement not really that keen just yet on recognizing that there are human beings such as LGBTs. I gathered more courage when I learned the theoretical bases and practice on the struggle for emancipation. It was then when I came out to my friends (or ex-friends), girl groups and some macho friends.

But may be that wasn’t enough. I came out marching in Pride marches. Not enough. I prodded on my former partylist’s support for LGBT issues and events. Not enough. I networked with LGBTs and groups. Not enough. Hay, alangan namang magpresscon pa ako para sabihing lesbiyana ako! 🙂 But I think, Bemz’s question gave me the jolt, made me challenge myself, how can you do more for the LGBTs, in the midst of everything you are into. How can you be OUT there for the struggle for the LGBTs. Since then, I have been brooding, brooding, brooding. And as all bright ideas come from extraordinary situations, Eureka!, I have thought of several ideas in my comfort time in the comfort room. The next months will then bear witness to my being OUT as a lesbian and as a lesbian warrior for the LGBT community.

As a postscript, may I just add a few thoughts on GENUINE LGBT activism. It should not about the amount of foreign funds that go into LGBT NGO work, it should not be about appearing to know or sympathize or advocate or fight for the LGBTs, it is not about paying lipservice about LGBT activism while promoting and actually proliferating macho and opportunist principles, it is not just about form, it is not about reformist principles. Any genuine LGBT activist can see through those who seem to be LGBT activists in form: they have fake smiles and they don’t have the heart and soul to struggle.

Repost: Reposts

I will repost my previous blog posts from my friendster (ehem!) blog, so as to salvage my primitive attempts to document my thoughts. Kaya whether anybody likes it or not, heto:

Repost#1: Gaycets

June 11th, 2007 by tinaypalabay

A birthday, a wake, a wedding. All these in a gay person’s life for the past 48 hours. Gaycets, as I call them, in my life and the pieces that left me brooding this way.

My best friend celebrated her 30^th (ehem) birthday last Friday. She was with people whom she love and people who love her for being the funky, relatively good person that she is (I should get paid for this). I love and admire her, not just because she has been with me through many things in life. Her passion
for learning and struggle and her personal convictions have inspired
me to drink in the mantra “the personal is political.” (operative word: drink)

My friend is a lesbian and an indomitable warrior. She takes in the sorrows of fellow lesbians, as she takes in her own, and spurs them in living and fighting for a world that knows no such sorrows for people. She broods and writes
and rants for this purpose.

I went to a wake of an acquaintance, a partner of a gay friend. He died at the age of 38 due to aneurysm, with his partner, family, friends and activists at his side. Theirs is a beautiful story of love and relationship that has challenged the core of existing beliefs on human relationships and marriage. From the belief of fleeting relationships among gays and lesbians, they
have transcended the norms and vowed in their marriage to live together with respect and trust. In their union, they have strengthened not only their relationship. They have strengthened the movement that aspires for a world that recognizes and respects such relationships.

With a society that considers heterosexual relationships as THE norm, it instills and destroys gays and lesbians into thinking that relationships with the same sex are fleeting ones, and sooner or later, they will just have to conform to what is normal, that is heterosexuality. It deprives them of an
environment that nurtures homosexual relationships that can last for
a long time.

Death may have perhaps cut short the life of that beautiful relationship. But the passion and principle of that love has left me inspired to reaffirm my belief that the beauties of such relationships should be pursued.

A friend and fellow lesbian warrior got married with the woman she love this weekend. They recounted  their travails in their 3-year relationship, their coming out, and the conviction and struggle they want to continue to humbly contribute to more meaningful changes in this harsh world. As they vowed to respect and trust each other, they also vowed to serve the people through
their love and principles.

Gaycets, as I call them. The facets of gay lives, of many other stories, that reaffirm that the personal is indeed political. What you do with your life is a political statement, one that can change or conform. We choose and live which gaycet we can have.