It’s June! Happy Pride!
Being female and coming from a lower middle-class family from a developing country that is painfully aware of its supposed place in the global food chain, privilege is not something I’m too used to. Except for the immense privilege of being loved by my family, I realized one "privilege" that has bestowed me my own share of comfort and “borderlined” my sense of compassion is being a cisgender female. Basically, my assigned female identity at birth and my identity as a woman are “in-line” with how mainstream society views these two together. Indeed, I was spared from all the unnecessary questioning of why I liked certain men, and chose to wear dresses or skirts on certain occasions. However, I do get questioned or am thought “unique” as I irregularly wear masculine/rugged attire in between, have almost zero knowledge on make-up, and tend to exhibit my own set of “intimidating” and supposedly “masculine” traits. But it’s Pride Month! So let’s stick with that. Being a millennial cisgender female (I only got to learn to specifically identify myself as this recently), I could more easily afford to associate myself with more “liberal” ideas about LGBTQIA+ compared to older generations. Despite being a human rights advocate, I was not too disturbed to consider LGBTQIA+ concerns as a main part of my life as an advocate. In the Philippines too, there are many external expressions of sexual orientation, gender identity and expression (SOGIE) that to an average heterosexual, it could easily seem as if we’re already “liberated enough.” But “enough” is problematic in a supposedly discerning world. Have you ever felt yourself having to contend with certain forms of injustices not because these evidently speak to you, but because you seek to honor loved ones and Love itself? My continuous questioning and growing determination to assert “Love Is Love” is because of these two things: because of loved ones, and because of having loved. On the easier part of the story or the latter concept, once love is experienced – that kind which seeks to accept the brokenness of the person and prioritizing her/his welfare over personal gratification – one cannot help but be more compassionate towards those who have felt, discerned, and intentionally acted on love, even if to pursue the beloved is to open up one’s self to all forms of questioning, scalding judgment and even isolation. On the harder part, this part of which I would have to write because of my direct experiences with loved ones, I have realized that I have to further grow within this realm of advocacy because I’ve repeatedly witnessed the cruelty of a supposed “human(e) society” against LGBTQIA+ friends. And to the shaking of my core, the three most major incidents in my life are tied to suffocating and rigid view of Christian Scriptures and faith practice. In sum, I’ve been touched by the wounds and good works of three beautiful souls who are in defiance of the binary: a lesbian, a pansexual, and a bisexual. All three identify with being born female, but do not fall within the my mostly accepted category of cisgender female. Being a practicing and questioning Roman Catholic Christian, I too remember how I was almost “lost” from the sheepfold. For a time, I was drawn towards a another supposed denomination that erringly values “spiritual prophecies and ecstasies” over the true prophetic call of engagement, which is simplified to denouncing all forms injustices; while announcing the Good News of God through healing, kindness and love. I was only drawn in gradually back into my faith as I learned of the how God is without a doubt, passionate about our everyday struggles of belonging, justice and love. God is Love. Hence, God is Freedom. As a feminist, Catholic, Filipina, cisgender woman and eco-social justice advocate, I honestly ought to be shaken more. All these frames point to a “bias” for questioning and liberation despite irregular exhaustion due to everything being in flux, and the constant state of existential crises the world is in. But then until when and where? I’ve been exploring “agency” recently in terms of both work and processing sessions with friends and fellow advocates. What has caused so much misplaced dedication in some to limit the discernment and human(e) agency of others in terms of what are some of the most sacred to them: their identity and their object of sincere affections? How can we think that despite our evident limitations and heterosexual privileges, that we ought to serve as the standard? How can we stand up for our individual right to be and to love, while denying others who do not fit in our mold? How can we be so certain that God who Is Love, share in our eagerness to condemn the other? How can we ever box the Love of God so easily? All these questions, coming at a relatively late time within my life, I find to be unexpectedly relevant to my soul-searching and path-seeking. I have no idea how I'd tie these up with my life's unfolding ways and legacy. At times, it frightens me how all these inquiries and realms are so vast, in addition to the tension that to take on too much might limit my ability to be present. Where is that sweet spot of breadth and depth, especially for a broken dreamer like me? But as I find myself disturbed and heartbroken for my friends, especially with how I know one of my friends has passed away in part due to systemic violence against LGBTQIA+, I am certain there are points of encounter I need to experience with those who stand by the truth that Love Is Love. And if you're considering this realm too, or are already well immersed in it, please do let me know! <3 We need everybody in the struggle for a more inclusive, compassionate and loving world.
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Have you ever felt your heart tired? Just exhausted with loving and caring in this world that seems to be in a lasting state of existential crises?
The concept “the gift or power of naming” has always intrigued me. My initial encounter with it was in J.K. Rowling’s Harry Potter. Then re-encountering the theme ever more magically in Ursula K. Le Guin’s Earthsea, readings in feminist theology and now, in Paulo Freire’s Pedagogy of the Oppressed. The power to name is supposedly empowering. I think it still is. But it’s such a burden too at times. To be able to name things for what they are gives you all the more reason to face them: injustice, betrayal, sacrifice, grief, despair, absence, theft etc. Death. Memento mori. And so, what now? What now when you have an indefinite number of days in life, inherited the wounds of generations past, and possibly unknowingly compromising the future of generations to come? And with all this struggling comes the banality of everyday survival: of having to lose a bit of your fire in order to participate in age-old systems. Because as much we’re against them, there is still dignity in the everyday resistance of just existing. Ignorance is bliss. To name is to contend with reality, not to be content with it. A tired heart is inevitable – and perhaps, necessary. Why does it have to be though that our very tiredness and finiteness be the groundwork for true emancipation? Why does tiredness and finiteness have to be necessary to make the choice to love all the more richer? Why would each of us, as little as we are, need to make such important bets (pagtataya) with implications across borders and generations? In the ongoing struggle, there is both pain and dazzling light. We call it the refiner’s fire |
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September 2022
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