Beyond Identity Politics: Intersectionality in the Filipino LGBTQ+ Community
The LGBTQ+ movement was catalyzed into reality when Marsha P. Johnson hurled the first brick during the Stonewall Riot. It signified the advent of a budding social movement that aimed to emancipate individuals of diverse sexual orientation, gender expression, and identity from the shackles of oppression. Moreover, it symbolized LGBTQ+ politics that transcended the confines of liberal identity politics. The Stonewall Riot was not merely a protest for gay liberation but it was also a revolution against a multitude of systems of oppression such as racism, police brutality, transphobia, and capitalism. Marsha, a black working class trans woman, embodied the intersections of these overlapping struggles.
Today, the LGBTQ+ movement has been increasingly diluted and coopted by bourgeois liberal politics. It has veered away from its radical roots and conformed to the reactionary character of the stats-quo. Rather than confronting the systemic roots of oppression, it has narrowly defined the boundaries of freedom solely in terms of gender and sexuality. For a liberal, the LGBTQ+ struggle is separate from the struggles of the broader masses. It conceives gender and sexuality as a different political and social domain that is not concerned with the liberation of other marginalized groups in terms of race, class, ethnicity, disability, religion, etc.
In relation to this, the recent blunders of several Filipino LGBTQ+ personalities attest to the liberal trajectory of the gay liberation movement in the country. The counterintuitive statements of Ricky Reyes, a gay hairdresser and businessman, and Jake Zyrus, a trans man international singer, prove that there are cleavages even within the community. Furthermore, the most recent issue of Raymond Gutierrez, a TV host who recently came out of the closet, drew flak when he posted a photo with the Christian conservative senator and boxer Manny Pacquiao that has further polarized the community.
In a controversial interview, Ricky Reyes vehemently expressed his disapproval of the SOGIE Bill in the country. According to him, the bill was unnecessary and that the LGBTQ+ must abide with the rules of society. Ricky thinks that the SOGIE Bill grants unwarranted privileges to the LGBTQ+ community. A similar incident transpired when Jake Zyrus proclaimed in an interview that trans people should go to restrooms according to their assigned sex at birth and not by their gender identity. As a trans man himself who experiences discrimination, Jake’s sentiments seem perplexing. On the other hand, the Instagram post of Raymond Gutierrez with Manny Pacquiao evoked dismay from the LGBTQ+ community considering that he just recently came out. Taking a chummy photo with Pacquiao who deems gay people as “animals” and a staunch opponent of same-sex marriage is inherently absurd. Considering these cases, there seems to be a cognitive dissonance amongst these personalities.
Is being a member of the LGBTQ+ automatically makes you a representative of the interests of their community?
Contrary to the monolithic conception of the LGBTQ+ community, it is also stratified according to different identities and competing interests. Queer folk may be bound by their similar experiences of gender oppression, but they are also racialized, classed, colored, physicalized, and etc. that make their lived realities distinct. This analytical framework that recognizes the different matrices of oppression is called intersectionality. According to intersectionality, an individual’s identity is composed of interconnected and overlapping social categories such as race, class, gender, and sexuality that produce differential modes of privilege and discrimination. In simpler terms, a white middle class gay man in the Global North may experience discrimination for his gender and sexuality but a colored working class trans woman in the Global South simultaneously suffers gender discrimination, imperialism, labor exploitation, and poverty. Intersectionality allows us to recognize that privilege can still exist even in marginalized groups like the LGBTQ+.
The same is true for the aforementioned personas that are queer but also belong to an elite class. Ricky Reyes may experience discrimination for his sexuality but he does not suffer under the homophobic capitalist market. For working class gay men, the SOGIE Bill ensures their welfare against the discriminatory practices of homophobic employers and firms. However, Ricky Reyes, who is an established businessman, does not need the SOGIE Bill to protect him because he owns a business chain of salons. On the other hand, Jake Zyrus who supports the segregation of trans people in bathrooms has a similar privilege rooted on his class as a bourgeois trans man. Jake Zyrus may enjoy the comfort of restrooms in private establishments that he can afford but trans women are literally murdered for simply using the women’s restroom. Trans women have the undergo the ordeal of negotiating their identity that could either mean life or death for them. Finally, Raymond Gutierrez who is a middle class gay man and a Filipino diaspora, enjoys the privileges of his US citizenship and class background. For Mond, he can show support for homophobic legislators like Pacquiao while remaining unaffected by the heteronormative laws of the Philippines. Even if Mond’s patronage bolsters the popularity of Pacquiao, he can still enjoy equal rights and same-sex marriage in the US while his fellow Filipino LGBTQ+ folk are marginalized and persecuted by the Philippine state.
Intersectionality reminds us that the struggle of the LGBTQ+ community cannot be divorced from other systems of oppression. Gay Pride can’t be simply reduced to rainbows and glitters as portrayed by mainstream media. Pride is, and will always be, a protest. There is no Pride when gay black men remain victims of institutional racism. There is no Pride when queer indigenous folk are robbed off of their ancestral land. There is no Pride when trans women are coerced into prostitution by the capitalist and patriarchal sex industry. There is no pride when queer people are exploited by imperialism in the Third World. Hence, the LGBTQ+ movement must not only liberate people from gender inequality, but all forms of oppression.
