The Rainbow Blog Philippines

The secret to being happy is ____________. To enjoy life to the fullest by being yourself (in every circumstance) no matter what anyone else says. There’s no need to stress over what other people say, because if one person doesn’t like you, there are still plenty of other people who will… Live your dreams. Know what you really want deep inside and what you really think that is good for you. Some people are not that open-minded to understand the happiness of us, PLU's but having faith and trust on oneself and valuing the uniqueness of others experiences, maybe perhaps the key to bliss. No one is guaranteed happiness, life just gives us space and time, it’s up to us to fill it with joy and meaning… in the long run, pessimists may be proven right, but the optimist has a better time on the trip. Please let me know what you think and tell me what makes you grin inside. crossposted from: Stainedheart's Blog

By Desiree Caluza Inquirer Northern Luzon BAGUIO CITY—The group Ang Ladlad said Sunday it was working to remove the obstacles to its party-list accreditation so that Filipino gays and lesbians could win representation in Congress in next year’s polls. Lawyer Germaine Leonin, Ang Ladlad treasurer, said the Commission on Elections disqualified the group in 2007 on the grounds that it failed to prove it had a nationwide membership. “This year, we are doing the groundwork [to satisfy the] regional representation requirement. So we have been going [around the] provinces to enlist support from gay and lesbian groups,” said Leonin, who attended the Gay Pride march here on Sunday. She said Ang Ladlad members visited Cebu City, Cagayan de Oro City, General Santos City, Aklan and Zambales recently to organize chapters and strengthen their campaign for party-list accreditation. She said the group would submit to the Comelec documents and other materials to prove they have members in provinces al...

Twas quite an interesting question when I was asked by my STRAIGHT friends regarding about GAY LOVE. Is love a decision someone has to make? Should I decide first before loving a person? Isn’t it that love is not something that you decide upon but is something that comes naturally? Well in my experience, yes…or it could be. though the feeling is there, you still have to decide if you’re going through with the whole process of loving that person. making your love be for that person. I’m 28 and fell in love with my Hubby 7 years younger than me, I had to make a decision... a BIG decision if I will act upon my love or will I set this one free? I guess if only the love is felt by both, like the person you like loves you too then the only decision to make is will you have the courage to take the chance with it. Once again, my answer would be yes.... OR just take the risk if you really have the "butterfly-in-the-gut" feeling towards that guy. Its better to love and fall out of ...

If you could take a pill that would turn you straight, would you take it?- Davey Wavey I won’t lie…I’ve considered being straight and just forgetting the gay thing. But then I just remember that vagina’s are really gross and my gayness flares anew! hahaha. Seriously, I would. It took me a very long time to come up with an answer for this. I thought about all the good in my life from being gay and thought about all the bad in my life. The bad outweighed the good. But now that I think about it, if I weren’t gay, I don’t think my Hubby and I would love each other the way we do. If we were straight, I think our relationship would be extremely different. hmmm maybe like beer buddies and stuff. So…I guess I change my mind. Losing the relationship I have with my Hubby is not worth turning straight. I love him too much and I don’t want to lose that feeling. crossposted from: Stainedheart's Blog

I can't believe that people just don't seem to get it. Being against gay marriage is as bad as being a racist. I'm gay, I'm asian and believe me persecution is the same no matter what it's target - black, white, gay, lesbian, etc. Prop 8 = HATE and that makes me hurt for all of us. We need to stop hovering in people's bedrooms and get down to the business of fixing this world-wide problem. The video made me cry. Its one of the most powerful videos I have ever watched in my entire life. I can’t believe how selfish people can be, to only want what is in their agenda. think everyone is entitled to happiness, regardless of what sex, race and culture. The video was beautiful and made me unhappy to see how many faces and people from so many walks of life will be wounded by this obvious act of bigotry. Give everyone EQUAL RIGHTS and get your heads out of the sand people. Gay is not a choice, just like I didn't choose to be asian! Two people who love each other and ...

On June 13, 2009, Justus Eisfeld (shown in the pic above) who sits in the advisory board of the LGBT Program of Human Rights Watch and Transgender Europe delivered a speech at the UN Panel on Human Rights, Sexual Orientation and Gender Identity in Geneva, Switzerland. I am posting his speech in its entirety below. If you read it, you will realize that trans people in Europe share the same life-and-death concerns with trans people in the Philippines and elsewhere. In it, he also makes mention of intersex people, or those who are born with ambiguous genitals, chromosomes and hormones. I do not agree with the other term he uses for them: "people born with disorders of sex development." Intersex rights advocates have maintained that this newer term being used to describe them did not come from them but from sexologists. They reject in on that account and for the further stigma it inadvertently brings to their condition. See the Intersex International website for more informatio...

Leona Lo, one of Singapore's high-profile out transwomen, is set to star in the stage adaptation of her autobiography From Leonard to Leona: A Singapore Transsexual's Journey to Womanhood . The play entitled Ah Kua (a pejorative Hookien term originally ascribed to cross dressers but now also increasingly being used to refer to transgender/transsexual women in Singapore), which runs from August 6, 7 and 8, 2009 at 8 pm at the Substation Theatre, has just encountered its first transphobic opposition from the National Library Board of Singapore no less. According to Leona in her blog , the National Library Board has not allowed displaying the show's poster on its notice boards. When Leona inquired, the Board gave her a standard line: "Displays at our libraries should be relevant to a broad audience of all ages." Of course, we can spend the entire day debating what that really means. Actually we can spend all day debating what libraries are for. Or we can argue back...

Rainbow Rights Project, Inc. and The UP Film Institute invite you to: DYKE DIALOGUES/RAINBOW EXCHANGE SERIES Filipino LGB Youth and SUICIDE RISK: Findings from a National Survey A study by Eric Julian Manalastas, Dept of Psychology, UP Diliman 1:00 - 4:00 pm 20 JUNE 2009 (Saturday) at the Videotheque 2nd Floor Ishmael Bernal Gallery (back of Cine Adarna) University of the Philippines Diliman Film Institute Diliman, QC This is a very important and serious research. But we'll try to keep the discussion light. Please come. Feel free to forward to your friends as well. Admission is free. Refreshments will be served. SEE YA!!!!!!!!

Book Review on Literature and Literary Theory Professor Emilio Bejel's book "Gay Cuban Nation". This post was written by RBP team member line of flight from Sampaloc Toc . Emilio Bejel is a Professor of Spanish American literature and literary theory at the University of Colorado at Boulder. He wrote Gay Cuban Nation . Before I get into the substance of this book, I was totally offended that the University of Chicago Press would print a book with so many fucking typographical errors! Shame! Shame! Shame! The first few chapters were very fascinating. I know almost nothing about Cuban literature or gay Cuban literary history so that was interesting in itself. However, what was more fascinating was Bejel's ability to weave Cuban national history into the framework of the "rupture" at the end of the nineteenth century / beginning of the twentieth century regarding sexuality. Nakpil Zialcita's comment about Philippine academic disregard for everything Spanis...

The endless talks on the A-H1N1 virus have made the intellectual public believe that this threat has been overly sensationalized. In yesterday's news, misconceptions on this dreaded virus were taken up, including the false belief that it is deadly and it is in the air. Apparently, it can be acquired through direct contact to fluids coming from an infected person (e.g., uncovered coughing and sneezing). As per contact with solid objects such as telephones, tables, etc., the virus stays active for 3 HOURS ONLY. As of writing time, there are already 311 confirmed cases of A-H1N1 in the country. Some of the patients NEVER came into contact with infected people in other countries, e.g., those cases in Bulacan. Some of them, too, have been confirmed POSITIVE just with runny nose and sore throat, WITHOUT fever, body aches, and other worse symptoms like vomiting and diarrhea. Which makes me wonder, what makes A-H1N1 A-H1N1 in the first place ? Facts have it that IT IS A NEW THREAD of the i...

Below is the call for writer and translator of the Yogyakarta Principles (YyP) Project of Ang Ladlad , the national organization of LGBT Filipinos. One of Ang Ladlad's campaigns for the year is to popularize the Yogyakarta Principles , an international document that applies human rights standards to issues pertaining to sexual orientation and gender identity and expression. After launching the YyP in the 2008 Manila Pride March and releasing a primer which I wrote and my friend Sass laid-out, now Ang Ladlad plans to translate the YyP into Filipino to make it more accessible to more people who want to know about LGBT human rights. The YyP translation is envisioned to contain cases of LGBT discrimination to demonstrate the 28 principles of the YyP. This is going to be an important document in LGBT civil rights advocacy in the Philippines and if you are or anyone you know is interested to be a part of it, please read the call below and submit the requirements to the email address spe...

Source: http://ph.news.yahoo.com/gma/20090616/tph-72-filipinos-arrested-in-saudi-for-g-ac8c905.html MANILA, Philippines- Wearing drag at a private event may be harmless fun in many societies, but 72 Filipino men found out they could suffer imprisonment and lashing in Saudi Arabia for such activities after they were arrested for immorality recently. An article in the Arabic news site www.sabq.org said several “deviants," a term used by Saudi Arabia’s English-language media to describe people who engage in gay behavior, were rounded up during a concert inside a compound in an eastern Riyadh neighborhood. The report quoted unnamed police officials as saying a "large number of foreign workers" were arrested in the incident, and 72 of them have Philippine citizenship. Vice Consul Roussel Reyes of the Philippine Embassy in Riyadh told GMANews.TV by phone on Tuesday that they are still confirming the identities of the Filipinos and will seek their employers’ help to bail them o...

Celebrate the 15th anniversary of the First LGBT Pride March in the Philippines and Asia! Baguio Pride Week Activities June 22-28 I got this from the ProGAY Yahoogroup I subscribed. For inquiries, please send your queries to progaynet-at-yahoo-dot-com. Celebrate the 15th anniversary of the First LGBT Pride March in the Philippines and Asia! Baguio Pride Week Activities June 22 (Monday) "Libreng Gupit Alay sa Pamayanan" (Free Haircut for the People). Venue: People's Park, 9am-5pm June 23 (Tuesday) Pink Film showing of "Babae" "If These Walls Could Talk" "Priscilla, Queen of the Jungle" Starts 3pm Venue: City Tavern Bar June 24 (Wednesday) El Toro Ms. Gay Beauty Pageant and Variety Show! Starts 8:00 Venue: El Toro Comedy Bar @ KM3, Central District, Marcos Highway "L" Night Starts 8pm Venue: City Tavern Bar 101 MS Florendo Buidling cor. Abanao Street June 25 (Thursday) Pink Film Showing "For the Bible Tells Me So" Starts ...

Are you gay, bisexual, lesbians or transgender? Are you from Baguio City or you live near Baguio? Ang Ladlad will visit Baguio this coming June 26, 2009. With all humility, I would like to ask favor from your end amidst your busy schedules if we could set up a meeting with you. Hoping for a favorable reply. Please contact me for further details. mobile number: +639159298233 email: visualinked@yahoo.com http://www.angladlad.org/ BUHAY BAYOT In solidarity, Dex

One of the biggest misconceptions about the word transgender is that it only refers to girls or women who were assigned male at birth. Because trans women somehow end up inadvertently becoming more visible than their male counterparts, they are more often than not perceived as the only ones who make up the T part of the LGBT community. Many forget that being transgender is experienced and expressed in so many ways by a wide range of people and that in fact, the "transgender experience" is lived through as well by those who were assigned female at birth and now have a male gender identity and masculine gender expression or those who we call transboys/transmen/transmales. Here in the Philippines, there is no organization for transmen as yet similar to the Society of Transsexual Women of the Philippines (STRAP) . Those of us from STRAP who get invited to speak in schools, work places and other venues, however, inadvertently meet many transmen in the process. So we know that the...

Today is the Philippine Independence Day. I see flags all over the Metro. My grandmother has even posted a flag on our gates. It kind of feels good to feel the nationalism in the country. I feel a little bit of pride fluttering in my heart. However, one day, I wish I could wave a different flag, and post it on my door. Then I would feel a bigger pride in my heart. Manila Pride March 2007 by: The Lesfriendly Girl Type rest of the post here

NGAYON ANG IKA 111st NA ANIBERSARYO NG ARAW NG KALAYAAN NG PILIPINAS. Ngunit, sa paglipas ng isang daan at labing isang taon, tunay nga ba tayong malaya na? May mga pagkakataong gusto kong isipin na hindi na tayo nakagapos sa mga bansang banyaga dahil nagkaroon na tayo ng kalayaan sa pamamalakad ng gobyerno. Ngunit, ano ang kalagaya n ng mga Pilipino ngayon? Mayroon na nga ba siyang dangal na matatawag? Taas noo na nga ba ang bawat Pilipino kahit kanino? Sa mga nakalipas na araw, samu’t saring problema ang dinaranas ng ating bansa. Mga problemang lalong nagpapalugmok ng bawat mamamayan. Mga problemang animo’y walang ka tapusan. Paano babangon ang isang Juan dela Cruz kung mismong mga namumuno sa ating bayan ang nagbabangayan? Paano tayo makakalaya kong mismong mga halal ng bayan ang siyang nanguna upang itali ang bawat mahihirap na pinoy sa kanilang pamamahala? Paano na ang walang tigil na pagbulusok ng presyo ng mga pangunahing bilihin? Ang walang humpay na pagtaas ng gasolina. Paano...

Kung san man kunuha ang larawang ito, siguradong ang natapyas na bahagi nito ay ang KADIRING Ilog Pasig. Malaya ka nga namang lumangoy jan. It's June 12. A red calendar holiday. As to what I hear, the country is commemorating its 111th Independence Day . Tanong (I know i'll spark a lot of violent reactions here but that is what I want): MALAYA BA TALAGA ANG PILIPINO? or PILIPINAS? Malaya ba ang bayad ka ng bayad ng TAX (halos katumbas na ng sweldo ng call center agent ang inaawas sa sweldo mo bawat bwan) tapos wala ka man lang nakikita na inilalapat ang perang pinagpawisan mo sa ikabubuti kahit ng lubak sa kalsada na syang nagiging sanhi ng limpak limpak na gastos mo sa kalampag ng sasakyan mo? Malaya ba ang halos di ka na makapag-liwaliw o makapag-abang ng sasakyan dahil takot kang may rumaragasang motorsiklo na biglang hahablutin ng nakasakay ang gamit mo? Malaya ba ang wala halos namumuhay na empleyado na hindi baon na baon sa lahat ng klaseng UTANG dahil ang sweldo halo...

My "ex" is now a Kapuso celebrity October 12, 2008 Ok, so, just a disclaimer. This guy became my "boyfriend." But, since I always claim that I've really been single since birth, I couldn't consider this guy as a real "boyfriend." Because our relationship was only via SMS messages and late night phone calls. Yes, we did meet up just once but there's not much really going on there. I mean, it's just really not it. I dunno how to explain it. But he's just an "ex" in a sense that he made me believe that there was really something going on between the two of us. But, I think it was a still a miracle. But, I also would like to blame myself for what happened with the two us. First off, I'm not gonna post his picture on my blog. He's an up coming male singer in the Kapuso network and I don't wanna create a fuzz about his teenage life. And most especially about building a link with him once again. As far as I'm concerne...

Adam Lambert officially comes out of the closest in the the new issue of Rolling Stone , on stands tomorrow. Here’s a preview of his interview: On coming out : “I don’t think it should be a surprise for anyone to hear that I’m gay…. I’m proud of my sexuality. I embrace it. It’s just another part of me [But] I’m trying to be a singer, not a civil rights leader.” On realizing he was gay growing up : “I started to realize I wasn’t like every other boy. I realized that we all have our own power, and that whatever I wanted to do, I had to make happen.”

Akala 'nyo Igorot ako, hindi ako Igorot, tao po ako . The famous devastating punchline by comedian Candy Pangilinan in her May 2009 show in Baguio City, which made her declared as "persona non grata" and banned from city premises, including her shows. After numerous on-air apologies, Candy went back to Baguio today to face the city council, and was finally FORGIVEN . I don't have much to say on this issue except that I don't condemn Candy for what happened. I'm sure she just lacked the necessary research on how sensitive Baguio indigenous folks are when it comes to their being a "minority." One false word and you're done. I experienced this myself when I took classes there. The term Igorot is something really to be careful of, more than God's word, when you're in Baguio (or anywhere in the Cordillera for that matter) and interacting with these people. A bad joke that it was, it is a common mistake among all those who haven't experien...

On June 2, Tuesday, the House of Representatives here approved House Resolution (HR) 1109 which allows Congress to convene itself as a Constituent Assembly aka ConAss, thereby giving them the authority to propose amendments to the Philippine Constitution. Critics of HR 1109 are pointing their fingers at President Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo (GMA) as the one responsible behind the move to change the Charter in order to prolong her stay in power. As GMA’s term as President nears its end, observers have been second-guessing the different routes she might take in order to lengthen her stay in the political limelight and expand her political might. Changing the Constitution chiefly for this purpose is one. Another way, which many are anticipating, is for her to run for a Congressional seat in the upcoming election in 2010 when her term as President expires. After securing a seat in the Lower House, analysts suggest that her allies in Congress will propose amending the Charter to abolish Congres...

Lunduyan ng Sining presents June Lemonites: GET DRAGGED Crossdressing Pride holiday June 8, 8:30 PM Mag:net Katipunan Let’s join the world in celebrating pride and diversity! Crossdress for cash! Come and crossdress as your fave theater, music or art icon. The most fab and most creative costume wins a cash prize! Featuring music of: Lee Grane of Blush Midnight Vaginas Tetas EF: P150 with 1 free drink!

DANTON REMOTO Chairman ANG LADLAD PARTY-LIST 2010 SENATORIAL CANDIDATE Are Filipino teenagers having more sex than their elders? Are they safe when they do it? Are they getting married earlier? What gives them their high? These questions and more are answered by the book Youth in Transition: The Challenges of Generational Change in Asia, edited by Fay Gale and Stephanie Fahey.The Philippine essay is done by Joseph H. Puyat of the Department of Psychology, University of the Philippines. Happily, Professor Puyat reports that more and more Filipinos are delaying their marriages. That would be good for maternal health and lesser children mortality rate for the country. “As of the year 2000, around 73 percent of males between the ages of 20 and 24 are still single. For females, the proportion is about 57 percent. Ten years ago, the proportion of men who have never been married is 63.3 percent, whereas for women it is 45.5 percent. The figures are significantly smaller for women, which ind...

Published on Sun.Star Network Online ( http://www.sunstar.com.ph/ ) Cebu Sun Star Newspaper Front Page May 16, 2009 WHILE Ang Ladlad may have been dropped from the official list of party-list candidates for the May 2007 elections for “not having enough members,” it assured that next year will be different. “We now have eight regional chapters,” said Danton Remoto, the group’s chairperson. Ang Ladlad has “enough” for the elections, with the group hoping to establish 12 regional chapters across the country before May 2010. It is a national organization of lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender (LGBT) Filipinos. It will file its certificate for accreditation as a party-list organization with the Commission on Elections (Comelec) on July 30. In a meeting with local supporters, Remoto appointed Orly Cajegas as Ang Ladlad-Cebu chapter head. “We are aiming, for sure, for one seat in Congress. But I’m personally hoping that we would get three seats,” Remoto said. Under Republic Act 7941, 20 pe...