STRAPpy days

On Thursday, 18 March 2010, STRAP members headed to the University of the Philippines Diliman Gender Office (UPDGO) to hold A Day with Rica Paras with selected undergraduate students of Psychology (see poster above). The event was envisioned as a celebration of International Women’s Day by putting a spotlight on STRAP’s current Vice-Chair, Rica who is also the first transpinay on the groundbreaking reality TV show, Pinoy Big Brother (PBB) Double Up.



Before Rica took the floor, STRAP treasurer Joy Cruz gave the audience a brief Transgender 101 talk just to get everybody on the same page (see pic above).



After about half an hour or so, the rest of the time was given to Rica to talk about herself, her struggle to be a successful person, what led her to PBB Double Up and her new life as a transcelebrity (see pic above).



The audience was very receptive to Rica and after her talk the floor was opened for the students to ask questions. Their queries ranged from personal questions for Rica to questions clarifying STRAP’s work and advocacy. After the open forum, the students asked to have their pictures taken with Rica. The STRAP girls present had to have their picture taken of course (see pic above).



After Rica’s talk, STRAP’s next activity was its monthly Support Group Meeting (SGM) which was held this Sunday, 21 March 2010. There were many girls present, which made me really happy (see pic above). The main agenda of this month’s SGM was the art and science of make-up.



For the session, we asked one of our members who have long years of experience working in the beauty industry, Seanel Caparas (right in the pic above), to take the lead and give the girls a demonstration. Seanel is well-known in the local transgender beauty pageant circuit. It was such a great session but as usual we lacked time to discuss things in-depth. Seanel left the group with this morsel of wisdom in doing make-up: “Light conceal, dark reveal.” Literally it means, if you want something covered up, you use light make up on it. If you want to emphasize something on your face like your eyes, then you use dark colors.

All the girls agreed to devote another SGM on hair and make-up because the time we had this time was just too limited. Seanel thankfully agreed to be the resource persons again for that planned meeting. I am so happy that we have people like Seanel who generously share their time, energy and talent with the rest of the girls in STRAP. Most people will think little of transwomen who work in the beauty industry and will actually dismiss them. They do not understand that what these transwomen have is actually a gift, an eye, a talent that not everyone possesses. Being a member of a human rights group like STRAP only adds another layer to the already established fact that they are smart, beautiful and empowered women. I salute these sisters of mine and am proud just to be associated with them.

Philippine government must apologize and start giving back to the Filipino transsexual community

Today, I came across news related to a story that came out in early January about Filipino transsexual women entering Japan with fake passports bearing the identity of non-trans women from the Philippines to marry Japanese men with whom they have had long-term relationships. You can read the news item here or below:

Philippine transsexuals nabbed for illegally entering Japan

Three Philippine nationals have been arrested in western Japan for entering the country on forged women's passports after undergoing sex change operations, local media reported on Tuesday.

The three had the illegal passports made by forgers in the Philippines using women's identification so that they could live in Japan as the "wives" of Japanese men they had met, Kyodo News said.

While working at nightclubs in Fukuoka, they secured spouse visas from local authorities, said Kyodo and other news reports, quoting local immigration authorities.

They were quoted as telling investigators they wanted to live as women and lead their lives with their loved ones, Kyodo said.

"They looked female. We could not tell they are men," an immigration official said, according to the Nishinihon Shimbun.

News like this makes me feel helpless, tired and angry at the same time. I feel helpless, because even if I want to be of help to these women there is really nothing I can do about it with those involved very far away. I feel tired because of the repeated assault by the media on the dignity of these women by continuously referring to them as men or women in quotes. I feel angry because it is a public secret in this country that Filipino transsexual women formed a major part of the Filipino diaspora that began in the late 70s. With no job prospects here and the economy in bad shape, millions of Filipinos started going abroad risking life and limb in many a foreign land to earn their keep and have a dignified life.

Transpinays were part of the early migration of Filipinos to other lands to seek greener pastures. Japan opened its doors to many of them, granting them visas as entertainers so that waves of these transwomen could work as singers and dancers in bars, pubs and night clubs in Japan. The last batches of these transwomen who entered Japan stopped around the turn of the millennium when the US and UN started pressuring Japan regarding trafficking activities within its borders. The response of the Japanese government was to close down all the bars which left many transpinays with no work and no prospects.

Even when the transpinay migration to Japan started in the early 80s, the Philippines government did nothing to ensure that their working conditions were safe and that they were being treated properly as productive employees of Japanese establishments. No reference even has ever been made to them when the Philippine government started a myth-making campaign hailing the Overseas Filipino Worker (OFW) as a new hero of the country whose foreign remittances keeps this country afloat.

Yet if you speak with these faceless transwomen, they have toiled with their hands, and suffered hard and back breaking work just so they could send those precious yens to help their families in the Philippines survive for years and years. But instead of showing gratitude to these thousands of women, the Philippine government has chosen to continue oppressing and marginalizing them by allowing a cruel Supreme Court (SC) decision in 2007 to stand which denied a transpinay's petition to change her name and sex in her birth certificate--in effect not granting transwomen status as people recognized in their gender in the eyes of the law.

This news item is clear evidence of what a discriminated minority will do when their chance at a dignified life is at stake: they will do something illegal. In Filipino, we have a phrase for situations like this: kapit sa patalim. Literally it means, clutching a knife's blade. With nothing else to hang on to and nowhere to go, generations of transpinays have clutched the sharp blade of a knife by going to Japan, Hong Kong, Singapore, Europe and many other countries and continents to survive. They do no one any harm. All they want is an equal chance at life and yet it seems the world will not stop until these transsexual Filipinas themselves give up clutching the knife and instead use it on themselves. Dignity only at the price of death.

I say enough! And I am demanding this country, this government to apologize to my community and start giving back to us! NOW!!!

A Day With Rica Paras

In celebration of International Women's Day, STRAP is holding a Day With Rica Paras, the first transpinay on the hit reality TV show, Pinoy Big Brother (PBB) at the University of the Philippines Diliman Gender Office (UPDGO) this coming Thursday. See poster below. Hope to see you there!

The right to self-determination

Last Saturday, 13 March 2010 was the STRAP forum on the right to self-determination. Our main speaker was STRAP founding member Sass Rogando Sasot (see pic above). The forum was co-sponsored by Task Force Pride (TFP) Philippines and the Metropolitan Community Church Quezon City (MCCQC).



The forum was very well-attended (see pic above) and I was glad that it was as the STRAP officers did their best to publicize and organize it. After Sass's speech talking about gender identity as a human right, we opened the floor to questions. One particular question that struck me was from a human rights defender who asked if there really could be a separate category that could be called "transgender human rights" to which both Sass and I at the same time replied with a loud, resounding "YES!" The language of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights (UDHR) was so general that TLBG activists needed to clarify what this set of human rights standards had to say regarding issues on sexual orientation and gender identity (SOGI). This is the primary reason why the Yogyakarta Principles came into being. This is also the reason why the concept of SOGI rights is being articulated by TLBG activists now to affirm the idea that different people experience discrimination, marginalization and persecution on different grounds. Some are oppressed because of their sexual orientation while some are treated badly and with disrespect because of their gender identity or expression. Of course there will be overlaps.

But the Yogyakarta Principles themselves are a set of general rights that do not explicitly outline what exact entitlements people deserve as transgender human beings. For example, there is no provision in the Principles that states outright that people have the freedom to determine their own gender. The idea is only referred to as a premise to the Right to Recognition before the Law. This is why transadvocates from around the world plan to come together to articulate clearly a set of rights in response to the human rights violations committed against transpeople. Of course some of these rights will be similar with existing human rights standards but they will be nuanced by the experience of transpeople. For example, the Right to Found a Family should be clarified by the idea that in many parts of the world transpeople are required to be sterilized which tramples their right to be parents and rear children.



After the Open Forum, we took several pictures. One picture above shows Sass with the three representatives of the organizations sponsoring the forum. From left are Ryan Silverio of TFP Philippines, me from STRAP, Sass and Rev Ceejay Agbayani of MCCQC.



And of course the night would not have been complete without the required picture of just the STRAP ladies present at the forum (see pic above). I was very happy because we had a new girl who came that night, Yasmin (right of me, in white). It was the first time that Yasmin attended a STRAP event and the first time for her to meet us. I was so happy that she came. I am always overjoyed when there are new girls around because they give me a sense of renewed energy. Yasmin told me that she wants to be more active in STRAP and I am looking forward to what she can contribute to this organization that we all love.

Celebration

STRAP is celebrating International Women’s Month, this month, in a big way. We will hold a forum on transgender human rights on 13 March 2010, Saturday in cooperation with Task Force Pride (TFP) Philippines, the official organizing network of the annual Pride March here in Manila and the Metropolitan Community Church Quezon City (MCCQC), a ministry for TLBG people (see poster above).

STRAP has a very good working relationship with both TFP and MCCQC. Several STRAP members have volunteered their time and talent to help in organizing the yearly TBLG Pride Parade in one way or another the last five years while the members of MCCQC have always been supportive of STRAP events and vice versa. In November last year, MCCQC also held a Transgender Day Of Remembrance (TDOR) commemoration and joined STRAP when we held the candle-lit remembering of the dead at the University of the Philippines (UP) in Diliman. I appreciate initiatives like this coming from predominantly lesbian and gay organizations because it shows that they care for the issues and concerns of transpeople. Many of us transpeople in the TLBG community here have grown up only knowing and learning about lesbian and gay rights. I know not all people working in, with and for the TLBG community here comprehend what being transgender means so when they try to understand it by asking us, agreeing to hold a forum with us or coming to talks with speakers from STRAP, I am very grateful for the effort they make.



Last December, when MCCQC held Night Masses to herald the Christmas season, STRAP happily agreed to sponsor one of them (see pic above with the MCCQC core group). We brought food and the STRAP officers acted as Bible readers for the mass. I was also asked to give a Christmas message that also served as the homily. For the homily, I decided to read the ministry the children’s book, 10,000 Dresses by Marcus Ewert and Rex Ray (see pic below). Christmas always reminds me of my childhood and my message was about the need for TLBG advocates to link fingers with the child in them as they do their advocacy work. By getting in touch with the child in us, I was encouraging all to approach activist work with wide-eyed wonder, innocence, hope, idealism, creativity and above-all child-like kindness. This is to counter the fatigue and the hardness that years of advocacy work can bring. I think our community also needs to work, always with a sense of renewal. Otherwise, burn-out can set it and you turn in sloppy activist work, a mistake that no one ever wants to commit, I’m sure.



Another great news worth celebrating from STRAP is an article that came out in the 7 March 2010 edition of the Sunday Inquirer magazine, the magazine supplement of the country’s leading newspaper. I think it was their women’s month issue and featured women from different fields. The issue had an article devoted to two STRAP members, Brenda Alegre, our resident clinical psychologist and Bemz Benedito who is the first nominee of Ang Ladlad partylist. You can read the article here. I am so happy for these two women of STRAP. I hope more STRAP members will give us a reason to celebrate who we are as we make our way through this month especially devoted to US. MABUHAY ANG TRANSPINAY!

Beginnings

Last 20 February 2010, Sunday, STRAP held its Support Group Meeting (SGM) for the month of love, as our Internal Affairs Head, Santy Layno put it. We met at the conference room of Isis International once again and after the personal sharing we had a discussion on transgender human rights. That day we had two new girls who were attending their first SGM. I hope they will be able to sustain their own momentum and that I will see more of them in the coming months. We were also joined by students from the Polytechnic University of the Philippines, a state university here. The students, Shara, Divine and Cindy (left most in the pic below) are working on their undergraduate thesis in Sociology and they decided to study the issue of transgender discrimination. STRAP members are their main respondents for the study. I am looking forward to seeing their final research paper as it will be the first institutional document that will talk about the discriminatory experiences of transgender women in the Philippines.



The week after, the STRAP officers minus Gia Nolasco, our Membership Coordinator, who is currently in Singapore, trooped to the University Hotel at the University of the Philippines (UP) Diliman for the national consultation meeting of Ang Ladlad, the national organization of TLBG Filipinos. One of the highlights of the day is the election of Ang Ladlad’s nominees for Congress, if ever the Supreme Court (SC) finally allows it to run in the partylist system after being denied by the Commission on Election (Comelec) on grounds of immorality. I am very happy that the first nominee is also from STRAP, Bemz Benedito, rightmost in the picture below. If Ang Ladlad gets a seat in Congress it will open a new chapter in TLBG rights advocacy in the Philippines and we are all excited over that. Rica Paras, the first transpinay on the hit reality TV show, Pinoy Big Brother (PBB) Double Up, who is also STRAP’s current Vice Chair, was able to take time off her busy schedule and joined us that day (middle in the picture below). Rica has been out of the PBB Double Up house for two months now and is making her first forays into show business. I hope this new chapter in her life will only be fulfilling, to say the least.



After the consultation meeting, the STRAP girls had to rush off to a meeting with our former chair, Dee Mendoza who told us that she was featured in the I, Woman section of Metro Magazine, the Philippine’s premier lifestyle magazine. I was overjoyed when I saw the article. It is entitled Transpinay and is in the magazine’s March issue, just in time for International Women’s Month. The article is accompanied by an iconic shot of Dee which everybody absolutely loves (see pic below). I hope this inclusion signals a recognition in the feminist community here that the issues of transwomen are women’s issues too.



Yesterday, 5 March 2010, Friday, I was invited to guest in a radio show called Radio Iskool (Radio School) at DZUP, the radio station of the UP Diliman College of Mass Communications (CMC). The hosts of the show, faculty members of CMC, were posing as students and each guest would be their “teacher for the day.” I was Teacher Naomi in the show and I talked about the TLBG community, the issues they face and the efforts that various TLBG organizations in the Philippines have done to fight for their rights and better their lives. I am disappointed when members of our community go on record and focus on sob stories involving us, talking only about our marginalization and zeroing in on our various oppressions. It depresses me when ever that happens because the TLBG community and its members come off as helpless victims who do not use their own agency to make things better for themselves. It is not only misrepresentation of the highest order but it also invisibilizes the efforts that people are making to empower themselves. I say enough of this victimhood nonsense!



STRAP is starting to get busy again after a two-month hiatus focusing on internal housekeeping. We are working on getting SEC registered so we can finally open a bank account in the organization’s name. Slowly slowly we are making things happen. I am excited about the prospects that being a duly recognized organization will bring. I feel like we are on the verge of a new beginning—one that is full of promise and light. We will have a series of activities in the coming days and I will tell you about those here. Stay tuned!