The Rainbow Blog Philippines

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 t...

I was on my way home when I got an itch to tune in to "Good times with Mo, Mojo and Grace Lee" on Magic 89.9. I've been hearing a lot about the trio from a friend on how good they carry any topics that's being brought on the table. She said it's a good jump-start for her day, I said what the "f" I work during graveyard. But still I gave in. DJ Mo heading the trio, is known for being bold, straight to the point, eloquent, witty, spontaneous and entertaining. I know no one that I know (or close to me) would admit that they like Mo Twister, or maybe few or very, very few rather. In the entertainment business, someone who's very upfront, tactless and sharp will always have a bunch of haters. Maybe more than half of the population who knows him hates him just like maybe same percentage of the Pinoy that hates Kris Aquino. Tell it to me. Why am I not surprised? Anywho, they can talk about anything and everything under the sun - from politics, current eve...

Book Review on American English Professor Judith Halberstam's book "In a Queer Time and Place". This post was written by RBP team member line of flight from Sampaloc Toc . Judith Halberstam is an American Professor of English and also has written Female Masculinity and The Drag King Book . In A Queer Time and Place discusses a number of topics involving sexuality and queer subjects. One of the topics of her book that I found interesting related to her discussion of metronormativity. Halberstam takes Michael Warner's heteronormativity ( Fear of A Queer Planet ) and reshapes it to describe the "normalizing" of urban sexual identities while abnormalizing rural sexual practices and identities. She takes the stories of several tragic FTM transgenders, like Brandon Teena to show how urban LGBT identities have allied with urbanism to create the belief that rural = homophobic. Halberstam shows how the movie Boys Don't Cry ended up changing Brandon Teena's...

Below is the statement of the Society of Transsexual Women of the Philippines (STRAP) on what happened recently to BB Gandanghari and her friends at a bar in Pasig City. It seems both ironic and fitting in the face of the global LGBT community preparing to commemorate this year (May 17, 2009) the International Day Against Homophobia (IDAHO) with a spotlight on transphobia. What happened to BB and her friends stands proof that transphobia exists and is alive everywhere in the world. A CALL FOR CHANGE Statement of the Society of Transsexual Women of the Philippines (STRAP) on the Aruba incident involving Binibini Gandanghari and her friends We, the members of the Society of Transsexual Women of the Philippines (STRAP) are deeply saddened by the incident that occurred on the night of April 23, 2009, Thursday, to Binibini (BB for short) Gandanghari and her friends at Aruba Bar and Restaurant in Metrowalk, Pasig City. On that said night, Aruba, with no compunction and invoking its NO CROS...