In all fairness
MANILA, Philippines - It was the garish, shining shimmering splendid spectacle that is Ateneo’s Dollhouse elections that caused me to stop and think, “Wait. This is kind of ironic.”
On one hand, people gathered and hailed and hooted — gays, lesbians, straight guys and girls alike — to hear (and see) the platforms of this year’s Dollhouse candidates. The presence of Divine Lee, the Queen Mother of all Queen Mothers, and some of the alumni toting their alpha-female alliances, motivated the Fame Monsters schooled in the academies of Gaga, Kylie and Cher into costume improvs, strut-offs and country club promises. No doubt about it, they were really born this gay.
On the other hand, almost a month ago, a screen cap at Overheard at the Ateneo de Manila 2.0, a Facebook page dedicated to eavesdropped musings within the campus, prompted violent responses from a post from someone who saw two guys at the library, and what the person thought was wrong with it — the anomaly being that the two guys were holding hands. The person’s name had been blurred out, but this much was clear. In the doll-eat-doll world of the gays, much was still expected to be black and white.
Minority Report
Seems that Mico, Dollhouse’s just-coronated Queen Mother, wasn’t oblivious to the irony either. “Ateneo has always been accepting and open to people like me, but may mga homophobe guys talaga and The Dollhouse has been battling these kinds of people one person at a time,” he says. The same case holds true for Gelo Arucan of De La Salle-College, Saint Benilde, who calls his school “very LGBT friendly” and Imam Ahmad of the University of Sto. Tomas says, “(UST) receives homosexuals well. I think they are more tolerant towards lesbians. When gays become too flamboyant though, the tendency of people in my school is to cringe.”
They’re all too aware of the kind of work cut out for them, caught in a bipolar predicament in which you either love them or you don’t. Being gay also comes with pitfalls of pigeonholing, with their associations beginning with jargon that takes fag hag devotion to understand and ending with being lauded for one’s style, humor or creativity. If they aren’t the Vice Gandas, they’re the celebrated designers, stylists and creative directors — and the quality of work they’ve produced is testament to the years-long practice of having to constantly go out of their way to validate their talent. “Being gay in this country is to continually have to prove one’s worth to the public,” Imam says.
This is a sentiment that crosses race, religion, and state. New York City, despite its “If you can make it here, you can make it anywhere” sensibility, wasn’t so successful in making same-sex marriage legal after its previous rejection. At least, not until recently, through the help of Democrat governor Andrew Cuomo (who is a Catholic), a lot of lobbying, and Wall Street donors. You know what else? Family.
Top Republican donor Paul Singer’s son is gay. Senator Carl Kruger, formerly opposing the idea, changed his mind because of his partner’s gay nephew, and pleading the case as well is the governor’s girlfriend’s openly gay brother. According to the New York Times, the story of how same-sex marriage became legal in New York is “about shifting public sentiment and individual lawmakers moved by emotional appeals from gay couples who wish to be wed.”
In a speech that we would never hear, Cuomo allegedly said to lawmakers that “(The gay couples’) love is worth the same as your love. And they are equal in their eyes to you. That is the driving issue.”
It has never been about demanding love or applause (though it is a common side effect), but more about being respected, not being cornered in the fields in grade school and be called “virus” or “AIDS,” and seeing nothing abnormal about two guys holding hands. This is about the recognition of how they’re trying to rise above the sort of emotional and psychological anguish society puts them through, and the tropes of convenience we trap them in — that they deserve the same consistency when it comes to rights and treatment is what it’s always been about.
That they allow us to penetrate their culture, and make it as “becky-friendly” and accessible to the rest of us while we don’t express the same courtesy of congruency — is what makes it all more than kind of ironic.
