Gay, Pregnant and Marked for Harassment

Here’s an article I wrote for Sunday Magazine of the Philippine Daily Inquirer. Since I haven’t posted anything for the last two weeks (?), I thought I’d just share this article. Many thanks to jaefever and her mom for facilitating this opportunity.

Gay, Pregnant and Marked for Harassment
By Jonas Bagas
Philippine Daily Inquirer

MANILA, Philippines - Remember the “flower platoon”?

Back when the Reserve Officers Training Course (ROTC) was still mandatory for male college students, it symbolized discrimination against gay students. Real men marched in real platoons; gay students were with their pansy fellows in the flower platoon. Their only duty was to cheer for their manly counterparts or run errands for them.

Well, the “flower platoon” disappeared with the abolition of compulsory ROTC in 2001, but the underlying biases that created it still persist. They come in the form of unwritten rules or the ubiquitous “morality clause” in the student manual. They are meant to crack the whip on what some sectors still describe as “moral deviants”—lesbians, gays, bisexuals and transgenders (LGBT), as well as unmarried pregnant students.

Last Man Standing

What with the society telling me over and over again that my sexual behavior is unnatural, I developed an inclination toward studying nature. As a student I thought I could pursue the desire – thoroughly boosted by the discovery that prehistoric insects trapped inside amber could lead to the cloning of dinosaurs – as a formal course. I wanted to be a genetic engineer.

But then math got in the way. No way I could stand in front of eminent scientists, George Bush, and Pope Benedict XVI, show them the cloned baby, and declare, “Jesus is back,” if I don’t know how to multiply fractions or if I panic at the sight of mathematical symbols.

So I became a “nature enthusiast” instead, which really is an excuse of sorts. I am a yoga enthusiast and not a yogi because I fall asleep while meditating. I can theoretically become a basketball enthusiast but never a basketball player because I lack the height. So there you go, the origin of a nature enthusiast.

So here’s my confession as a nature enthusiast. After climate change, my next nature obsession is the discovery by scientists that the Y chromosome is shrinking. Others actually estimate that it could totally disappear in 125,000 years. What this means is that men could vanish, replaced by asexual, all-female humans.

Ten things you need to know about the Anti-Discrimination Bill

Yes, it has been languishing in Congress since 1999, and yes, we’re still pushing for it. It ain’t over until it has been passed into law.

The Anti-discrimination bill, filed this term as HB 956 by AKBAYAN Rep. Risa Hontiveros-Baraquel, seeks to prohibit a wide-range of discriminatory policies and practices against Filipino lesbians, gays, bisexuals and transgenders (LGBTs). Homophobic groups and politicians (Remember that idiot, Rep. Abante?) have used various tactics to block the bill, from scaring people that the bill is about same-sex marriage - which is patently untrue - to misleading people that it is not needed. What with these media-instigated raids in gay bars taking place, or gay men being victimized by hate crimes, and presumably gay sons or lesbian daughters being beaten up by their parents, i seriously wonder where they got the notion that we don’t need a law against discrimination?!?

Anyway, blame Cardinal Rosales for this entry on the Anti-Discrimination Bill. He recently said that gay men should be banned from Sagalas, a statement that clearly attacks our tradition. Even before the LGBT started organizing the annual Pride March, gay men were already parading in Sagalas, as Reyna Emperatriz or Reyna Elena, as giggling sakristans, or as closeted priests. The gay community has always been part of that tradition.

After Cardinal Rosales imposed the ban, a group of gay men thought of organizing a Sagala in Quezon City exclusively for homosexuals. We’ll be there, distributing fliers on the Anti-Discrimination Bill, on safer sex, and yes, we’ll be distributing condoms, too. There goes tradition, Cardinal Rosales.

PS. Contrary to news reports, I am not a Marian devotee. (I can almost hear ‘em shouting, “Burn, Bagas, Burn!”)

Gay sex and the Catholic Church

Monsignor Achilles Dakay of the Archdiocese of Cebu blames ‘gay sex’ as the real culprit behind the so-called Cebu rectal surgery scandal. All I can say to Father Dakay is this: Father, there’s a whole world of gay sex taking place in your parish, perhaps even within your parish church. All you have to do is open your eyes. Where else did those erotic fantasies about priests and sacristans come from?

I wonder, after calling gay sex unnatural and perverse, what does ‘gay sex’ conjure in the mind of Father Dakay? Does the idea of oral sex between men evoke images of Dementors? Does he believe that we are all predisposed to get motel rooms that are, by some evil design, all numbered 666? It would probably surprise our dear Father Dakay to discover that when we have sex on the floor, we don’t do it inside a huge drawing of the pentagram, surrounded by candles. We don’t do a Linda Blair or an Emily Rose when we cum either; when that happens, please be assured, Father Dakay, that I’d be the first to request for an exorcism.

One Art

I remember how, after seeing Notre Dame in Paris for the first time, loneliness arrived without any warning. I was alone, my Algerian companion was either shopping or plotting with her comrades their own revolution, when I decided to go around the city, to visit sites that I initially thought to be too touristy. My first stop, Notre Dame, astonished me. A middle-aged lady from New Jersey said to me that she wouldn’t mind getting married there, to let the weight of the church become the symbol of her vow.

It was right at that moment that loneliness stepped forward and looked at me. Notre Dame became a summary of my losses, an alienating monument that evoked a desperate and frantic attempt to connect with former lovers, with people I’ve been with, with those who were close to me. Anything, anyone, just to deny that I am truly alone. It was Notre Dame at first, then Eiffel, Mont Mart, Arc de Triomphe: each one offering a testimony of sadness, each one telling me that the heart grows heavy before it breaks.

Which brings me to the point of this entry. Where I am right now is far from Paris, but tonight, everything - the ordinariness of cabs parked in the streets, the stray dogs scouting for a quick meal, the beggars - they are all saying that the heart grows heavy before it breaks.

One Art

The art of losing isn’t hard to master;
so many things seem filled with the intent
to be lost that their loss is no disaster.

Lose something every day. Accept the fluster
of lost door keys, the hour badly spent.
The art of losing isn’t hard to master.

Then practice losing farther, losing faster:
places, and names, and where it was you meant
to travel. None of these will bring disaster.

I lost my mother’s watch. And look! my last, or
next-to-last, of three loved houses went.
The art of losing isn’t hard to master.

I lost two cities, lovely ones. And, vaster,
some realms I owned, two rivers, a continent.
I miss them, but it wasn’t a disaster.

—Even losing you (the joking voice, a gesture
I love) I shan’t have lied. It’s evident
the art of losing’s not too hard to master
though it may look like (Write it!) like disaster.

– Elizabeth Bishop

An Open Love Letter

Today, I woke up with a persistent buzz inside my head. I knew immediately that a shift in my world happened, a not-so subtle change. It was not in the morning news but I noticed even before rising that the pillows on my bed were already conferring with each other, trading rumors in whispers.

While having my breakfast, the bowl I took from the shelf stared back with a knowing, malicious look on its face. As I poured milk on my oatmeal and muesli they let out a clear giggling sound – was it them or the buzz in my head – and they only stopped when they saw me looking. Poets have claimed that rivers sing, but I swear that today it was the faucet that I heard, releasing a melody that the sink gladly embraced. Even the fan nodded its agreement: today I woke up with a psychedelic buzz inside my head.