By Ida L. Bata Sunday Inquirer Magazine First Posted 18:56:00 03/06/2010 “I AM a woman. I’m not gay.” This succinct line from a song by a local artist best describes how Transpinays (or Filipino transsexuals) see and accept themselves –and hope the rest of the world would too. The words reflect the experience of Filipino transsexual women, says Brenda R. Alegre, a clinical psychologist who has completed a study on transgenderism. Herself a transsexual, Alegre explains that they are individuals whose sex and gender are in opposition, and so they seek to hormonally or surgically alter their bodies to match their gender identities. Gays, on the other hand, do not feel the need to change their genitals, she adds. Alegre began her research back in 1993 while completing a Psychology course at the University of Santo Tomas. “The research was something I really wanted to do. My feeling of being a woman is genuine and sprung from the time I was 5,” she shares. Her research included watching and...

Yearender: Human rights protection in RP sinks to 'terrible low' By Katherine Adraneda (The Philippine Star) Updated January 01, 2010 12:00 AM MANILA, Philippines - The country’s dismal reputation on human rights promotion and protection got worse in 2009. After declaring a “dismal” state of human rights defense in the country in 2008, the Commission on Human Rights (CHR) affirmed that 2009 was not any better. CHR chair Leila de Lima said the prevailing culture of impunity by allies of the Arroyo administration saw the Philippines “sink to a terrible low” in terms of human rights protection. De Lima said the massacre of 57 people in Maguindanao last month can be considered as “a foreshadowing of even worse things to come.” The massacre has been blamed on a family of politicians that are allied with the Arroyo administration. “That slaughter offers us a foreshadowing of the other horrors and brutalities we will continue to face, if we do not find meaningful and lasting solutions...

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 perce...

By Danton Remoto | Remote Control | 03/24/2009 12:03 AM Views and analysis www.abs-cbnNEWS.com My transgender friends in Society of Transsexual Women of the Philippines (STRAP) met with me for coffee one night in Makati and told me they want to write a rejoinder to my column about our common friend, BB Gandanghari. I was glad to listen to them and learn more about the transgender experience. I attended a four-hour-long session with them two years ago about the transgender experience, but I guess I still have a lot to learn. I also admitted that, like many others, I was confused with the beautiful and effervescent BB Gandanghari. In “Pinoy Big Brother” two years and in some of her magazine interviews in the past two months, she confessed to being “a gay man” and not once did she use the word “transgender” to identify herself. Be that as it may, I now give the floor to Dee Mendoza, Chairwoman of STRAP, who wrote a reaction letter to “articles written about and comments given to BB Gandan...