March 3, 2012 By Julie M. Aurelio Philippine Daily Inquirer Marking a new milestone, students of the premier University of the Philippines in Diliman, Quezon City, elected their first openly transgender chairperson of the university student council (USC). In elections concluded Thursday night, Heart Diño bested three other candidates, including independent candidate Martin Loon of the UP College of Law and Amancio Melad III of the militant Stand UP coalition. Born Gabriel Paolo Diño, 22-year-old Heart recently completed a bachelor of science degree in mathematics, magna cum laude, and is currently an MS Applied Mathematics major. She led the Alyansa ticket (Alyansa ng mga Mag-aaral para sa Panlipunang Katwiran at Kaunlaran) and campaigned on a platform of antigender discrimination, transparency and zero fraternity-related violence. Before winning the top post in the state university council, she was a popular councilor who headed the USC committee on gender and a leader of the UP Babay...

BY PAU FONTANOS AND SASS ROGANDO SASOT Business World Magazine March 27, 2009 As advocates for the Filipino lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender (LGBT) community, we watched in horror and disappointment as well-known members of our community, one after the other, came out on TV and other media disparaging Binibini (BB for short) Gandanghari. When BB Gandanghari first burst out into the scene, we, who make-up the "T" part of the LGBT (lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender) community, were excited that at last someone as high profile as BB had arrived and could potentially bring our issues to the fore and with matching beauty, wit, charm and aplomb at that. That she was met instead with ridicule, criticism and nastiness only confirmed one thing that we have been contending with for some time now: that the LGBT community needs to do more in terms of educating society in general about equality and respect for diversity particularly in regard to trans-gender issues. For if those p...

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...