Southeast Asia’s Most Gay-Friendly Country

Still Has No Law Against LGBT Discrimination

Drag queens Lumina Klum and Mrs. Tan perform as activists take part in a
protest to kick off Pride month in Quezon City, Metro Manila, Philippines, June
2, 2023.Ezra Acayan—Getty Images
TEXT BY CHAD DE GUZMAN/MANILA
JUNE 30, 2023 7:00 AM EDT
A t first glance, the deeply Catholic Philippines can seem surprisingly LGBT-friendly.
In a nation of 110 million people, more than 110,000 showed up last week to Quezon
City’s Pride festival, making it by far the largest LGBT congregation in Southeast
Asia. The country also ranks highest in the region for LGBT social acceptance—
according to a 2021 global index—and it’s made significant strides over the years
toward greater inclusivity and equality.
And yet, for more than two decades, a bill that would criminalize discrimination based
on one’s sexual orientation, gender identity, gender expression, or sex characteristics
(SOGIESC) has languished in the Philippines’ Congress. Year after year, it’s
practically become an annual tradition for legislation on the matter to be reintroduced
and rejected, leaving LGBT people in many parts of the country with no legal
recourse when they’re discriminated against.
Read more: A Year After Singapore Decriminalized Gay Sex, Its LGBT Community
Turns Attention to Family
While many cities across the country have already instituted local ordinances to make
SOGIESC-based discrimination illegal, Irish Inoceto, a Filipino LGBT activist and
former employee of the Philippine Supreme Court, tells TIME that they have “no
teeth at all” and that she has seen firsthand just how overdue and glaringly necessary
such a nationwide law is.

Last October, Inoceto received a message on Facebook from an 11th grader just
weeks before students were to be required back in classrooms after two years of
COVID-prompted remote learning. The student, a transgender woman in Iloilo City,
some 280 miles southeast of Manila, had met Inoceto through one of the routine
LGBT rights seminars Inoceto facilitated across Iloilo City, where she used to be
based. The student, who had attended some classes in person during a hybrid-remote
period, told Inoceto that the school principal summoned her personally to say that men
should not wear bras; she also said a school security officer policed her uniform.
Meanwhile, another student at the same school who also identifies as a transgender
woman similarly reached out to Inoceto to tell her that the principal rounded up all the
students in her grade and declared that bakla (gay men) with long hair must cut it or
be barred from school.

“The length of my hair is not the basis for my schooling,” the latter student, who is
now 19 and requested anonymity for fear of further discrimination, tells TIME.
The situation prompted Inoceto to write to the school on both students’ behalfs. She
cited Iloilo City’s own anti-discrimination ordinance that passed in 2018, but she says
her letter was ignored. Only after visiting the principal in person did Inoceto
ultimately prevail in getting the school to back down on its attempts to curb both
students’ gender expression. Any relief for Inoceto, however, was short-lived. The
ordeal thrust her into the national spotlight and set in motion a saga that would
ultimately force her to flee the country, where she continues to advocate for the
national anti-discrimination bill to be passed.

Inoceto, who is now 46 years old, has spent half her life watching Philippine
legislators fail to create a national anti-discrimination law for the LGBT community.
Legislative records show the first version of what would later come to be known as
the SOGIE Equality Bill was filed in the Philippine House of Representatives on Jan.
26, 2000. Successive Congresses have seen the bill progress through the legislative
process to varying degrees, only to meet the same fate: at best, the entire lower
chamber might approve it, only for the upper chamber—the Philippine Senate—to let
it stall in deliberations.
The most recent version of the bill in the Senate would outlaw SOGIESC-based
discriminatory practices like refusing admission to or expelling a person from schools,
or imposing harsher than normal disciplinary sanctions on students. If passed,
violators may pay a fine as high as 250,000 Philippine pesos ($4,535) or be jailed for
as long as six years.

Though the Philippines does not recognize such unions, 29 same-sex couples
symbolically tie the knot in Quezon City on June 25.Ezra Acayan—Getty
Images

But the bill faces steep political resistance, particularly from Christian fundamentalists
who, despite constituting a minority of the population compared to the Philippine’s
overwhelming Catholic majority, represent a potent political force in the country:
megachurches have galvanized fiercely loyal followings and fostered political power
through electoral endorsements and the fielding of their own candidates.
Read more: In the Philippines, You Can Be Both Openly LGBT and Proudly
Catholic. But It’s Not Easy
Opponents of the SOGIE Equality Bill have been accused of promulgating
disinformation online as well as in the halls of Congress to obstruct its passage.
Two of the most vocal figures in the legislative efforts to block the bill are father and
son duo Eddie and Joel Villanueva—a representative and senator, respectively. The
elder Villanueva, who is also the founder of the Jesus is Lord megachurch, has
describe the bill as “imported,” saying it doesn’t represent Filipino values, while the
younger Villanueva has accused the bill of being a precursor to “same-sex marriage.”
Reyna Valmores, chair of the Philippine LGBT rights group Bahaghari, has attended
deliberations of the bill in the Philippine House as a resource person. She tells TIME
the hearings can often feel like a “circus” of disinformation. “We have elected
officials talking about how the SOGIE Equality Bill is going to legalize bestiality, is
going to legalize having sex robots, and some other such nonsense.”

Members and supporters of the LGBT community take part in the Metro
Manila Pride March in Pasay, June 25, 2022.Jam Sta Rosa—AFP/Getty
Images
“It’s a matter of debates in Congress,” Valmores says. “But for many people, it’s a
matter of survival.”

Soon after helping the two students in Iloilo City, Inoceto began to be targeted at a
national scale—highlighting some of the extreme measures taken by prominent
opponents of LGBT advocacy in the country.
Her name appeared in broadcasts from the Sonshine Media Network International, a
television station owned by Apollo Quiboloy—a Philippine megachurch leader who is
on the FBI’s most-wanted list for charges of sex trafficking women and children. Two
anchors of a show on the network, Lorraine Badoy and Jeffrey “Ka Eric” Celiz,
claimed that Inoceto was a member of the local communist insurgency group and has
been using LGBT issues—such as her opposition to the gendered haircut policy—to
recruit students from the Iloilo school. (TIME spoke to multiple students who denied
that they had been recruited by Inoceto in any way.)
The sudden attention was confusing and frightening: “I’m an activist, but I’m not a
big-time activist,” Inoceto tells TIME. “I work after hours and on weekends on my
advocacy. So I was like, ‘Why me? And why issues on trans women students?’”

People protest a pardon granted to a U.S. marine who was convicted in 2014
of killing a Filipino transgender woman, in Quezon City, Sept. 8, 2020.Ezra
Acayan—Getty Images
Red-tagging—a McCarthyism-like tactic of falsely labeling people as communists
historically used in the Philippines to silence critics of the government, which has
sometimes even led to victims being killed—has more and more been used against
LGBT advocates in recent years. (Valmores from Bahaghari has also been red-
tagged.)
Read more: You’ve Probably Heard of the Red Scare, Here’s the History You Didn’t
Learn About the Anti-Gay ‘Lavender Scare’
After the broadcast, the country’s Commission on Human Rights issued a
statement expressing concern over the anchors’ remarks, adding that the narrative
they used “only serves to perpetuate the already disadvantageous plight of the LGBT
who frequently face stigma, discrimination, and gender-based violence in our
society.”
But that wasn’t the end of it. Inoceto saw her face posted across tarpaulins in the city,
and her identity spread on social media. She even says her mother was visited by
people who claimed to be police officers, asking her to stop her LGBT activism.
Concerned over the risks to her and her family’s safety, Inoceto says she applied for
political asylum in France, where she is currently staying. She’s convinced that if the
SOGIE Equality Bill had already been passed, she would have been protected from
her harassment. “Right out the bat I was discriminated [against] because I was
working towards inclusion,” she says.
Still, despite all the obstacles and dangerous disinformation wielded against the LGBT
movement, Inoceto remains hopeful that the anti-discrimination bill in the Philippines
will eventually pass—but not without sustained pressure put on the groups that are
standing in its way. “Rights are fought for and won after so much struggle after all,”
she says. “We just need to be stronger. In the meantime, we keep fighting the good
fight.”
“Just Let Us Be”
Discrimination Against LGBT Students in
the Philippines
June 21, 2017 News Release

[Senator and boxing legend] Manny Pacquiao says we’re not human. They should just
let us be.

– Edgar T., an 18-year-old gay high school student in Manila, February 2017

Schools should be safe places for everyone. But in the Philippines, students who are
lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender (LGBT) too often find that their schooling
experience is marred by bullying, discrimination, lack of access to LGBT-related
information, and in some cases, physical or sexual assault. These abuses can cause
deep and lasting harm and curtail students’ right to education, protected under
Philippine and international law.

In recent years, lawmakers and school administrators in the Philippines have

recognized that bullying of LGBT youth is a serious problem, and designed
interventions to address it. In 2012, the Department of Education (DepEd), which
oversees primary and secondary schools, enacted a Child Protection Policy designed
to address bullying and discrimination in schools, including on the basis of sexual
orientation and gender identity. The following year, Congress passed the Anti-
Bullying Law of 2013, with implementing rules and regulations that enumerate sexual
orientation and gender identity as prohibited grounds for bullying and harassment.
The adoption of these policies sends a strong signal that bullying and discrimination
are unacceptable and should not be tolerated in educational institutions.
But these policies, while strong on paper, have not been adequately enforced. In the
absence of effective implementation and monitoring, many LGBT youth continue to
experience bullying and harassment in school. The adverse treatment they experience
from peers and teachers is compounded by discriminatory policies that stigmatize and
disadvantage LGBT students and by the lack of information and resources about
LGBT issues available in schools.

This report is based on interviews and group discussions conducted in 10 cities on the
major Philippine islands of Luzon and the Visayas with 76 secondary school students
or recent graduates who identified as LGBT or questioning, 22 students or recent
graduates who did not identify as LGBT or questioning, and 46 parents, teachers,
counselors, administrators, service providers, and experts on education. It examines
three broad areas in which LGBT students encounter problems—bullying and
harassment, discrimination on the basis of sexual orientation and gender identity, and
a lack of information and resources—and recommends steps that lawmakers, DepEd,
and school administrators should take to uphold LGBT students’ right to a safe and
affirming educational environment.

The incidents described in this report illustrate the vital importance of expanding and
enforcing protections for LGBT youth in schools. Despite prohibitions on bullying,
for example, students across the Philippines described patterns of bullying and
mistreatment that went unchecked by school staff. Carlos M., a 19-year-old gay
student from Olongapo City, said: “When I was in high school, they’d push me, punch
me. When I’d get out of school, they’d follow me [and] push me, call me ‘gay,’
‘faggot,’ things like that.” While verbal bullying appeared to be the most prevalent
problem that LGBT students faced, physical bullying and sexualized harassment were
also worryingly common—and while students were most often the culprits, teachers
ignored or participated in bullying as well. The effects of this bullying were
devastating to the youth who were targeted. Benjie A., a 20-year-old gay man in
Manila who was bullied throughout his education, said, “I was depressed, I was
bullied, I didn’t know my sexuality, I felt unloved, and I felt alone all the time. And I
had friends, but I still felt so lonely. I was listing ways to die.”
The mistreatment that students faced in schools was exacerbated by discriminatory
policies and practices that excluded them from fully participating in the school
environment. Schools impose rigid gender norms on students in a variety of ways—
for example, through gendered uniforms or dress codes, restrictions on hair length,
gendered restrooms, classes and activities that differ for boys and girls, and close
scrutiny of same-sex friendships and relationships. For example, Marisol D., a 21-
year-old transgender woman, said:

When I was in high school, there was a teacher who always went around and if you
had long hair, she would call you up to the front of the class and cut your hair in front
of the students. That happened to me many times. It made me feel terrible: I cried
because I saw my classmates watching me getting my hair cut.

These policies are particularly difficult for transgender students, who are typically
treated as their sex assigned at birth rather than their gender identity. But they can also
be challenging for students who are gender non-conforming, and feel most
comfortable expressing themselves or participating in activities that the school
considers inappropriate for their sex.

Efforts to address discrimination against LGBT people have met with resistance,
including by religious leaders. The Catholic Bishops’ Conference of the Philippines
(CBCP) has condemned violence and discrimination against LGBT people, but in
practice, the Roman Catholic Church has resisted laws and policies that would protect
LGBT rights. The CBCP has sought to weaken anti-discrimination legislation pending
before Congress, for example, and has opposed implementation of comprehensive
sexuality education in schools. Representatives of the Church warn that recognizing
LGBT rights will open the door to same-sex marriage, and oppose legislation that
might promote divorce, euthanasia, abortion, total population control, and homosexual
marriage, which they group under the acronym “DEATH.” In a country that is more
than 80 percent Catholic, opposition from the Church influences how LGBT issues
are addressed in families and schools, with many parents and teachers telling students
that being LGBT is immoral or wrong.

One way that schools can address bullying and discrimination and ameliorate their
effects is by providing educational resources to students, teachers, and staff to
familiarize them with LGBT people and issues. Unfortunately, positive information
and resources regarding sexual orientation and gender identity are exceedingly rare in
secondary schools in the Philippines. When students do learn about LGBT people and
issues in schools, the messages are typically negative, rejecting same-sex relationships
and transgender identities as immoral or unnatural. Juan N., a 22-year-old transgender
man who had attended high school in Manila, said, “There would be a lecture where
they’d somehow pass by the topic of homosexuality and show you, try to illustrate
that in the Bible, in Christian theology, homosexuality is a sin, and if you want to be a
good Christian you shouldn’t engage in those activities.” Virtually all the students
interviewed by Human Rights Watch said the limited sexuality education they
received did not include information that was relevant to them as LGBT youth, and
few reported having access to supportive guidance counselors or school personnel.

When students face these issues—whether in isolation or together—the school can

become a difficult or hostile environment. In addition to physical and psychological
injury, students described how bullying, discrimination, and exclusion caused them to
lose concentration, skip class, or seek to transfer schools—all impairing their right to
education. For the right to education to have meaning for all students—including
LGBT students—teachers, administrators, and lawmakers need to work together with
LGBT advocates to ensure that schools become safer and more inclusive places for
LGBT children to learn.
Malala Yousafzai
1997-
By Kerri Lee Alexander, NWHM Fellow | 2018-2020

At age eleven, Malala Yousafzai was already advocating for the rights of
women and girls. As an outspoken proponent for girls’ right to education,
Yousafzai was often in danger because of her beliefs. However, even after
being shot by the Taliban, she continued her activism and founded the Malala
Fund with her father. By age seventeen, Yousafzai became the youngest
person to receive the Nobel Peace Prize for her work.
Malala Yousafzai was born on July 12, 1997 in Mingora, Pakistan. Mingora
is the largest city in the Swat Valley of the Khyber Pakhtunkhwa Province in
Pakistan. Yousafzai was the first of three children born to Ziauddin and Tor
Pekai Yousafzai. Although it was not always easy to raise a girl child in
Pakistan, Malala Yousafzai’s father insisted that she received all of the same
opportunities afforded to boy children. Her father was a teacher and
education advocate that ran a girls’ school in their village. Due to his
influence, Yousafzai was passionate about knowledge from a very young age,
and she would often waddle into her father’s classes before she could even
talk. However, by the time she was ten years old, Taliban extremists began to
take control of the Swat Valley and many of her favorite things were banned.
Girls were no longer able to attend school, and owning a television, playing
music and dancing were all prohibited. Girl’s education was specifically
targeted by the Taliban and by the end of 2008 they had destroyed over 400
schools. At eleven years old, Yousafzai decided to stand up to the Taliban.
Yousafzai started by blogging anonymously for the British Broadcasting
Corporation (BBC) in early 2009. She used the penname, “Gul Makai,” and
spoke about her life under Taliban rule and how much she wanted to attend
school. Her first BBC diary entry entitled, “I Am Afraid,” detailed her
nightmares about a full-blown war in her hometown. Her nightmares started
to become reality, as Yousafzai and her family were soon forced to leave
their home due to rising tensions between Pakistan and the Taliban. This did
not stop Yousafzai from advocating for her right to attend school. Over the
next few years, she and her father began speaking out on behalf of girls’
education in the media. They campaigned for Pakistani girls’ access to a free
quality education. By 2011, Yousafzai was nominated for the International
Children’s Peace Prize. Although she did not win, that same year she earned
Pakistan’s National Youth Peace Prize. Yousafzai was now a household
name. However, this also made her a target.
On October 9, 2012, fifteen-year old Yousafzai was on the bus returning
from school with her friends. Two members of the Taliban stopped the bus
and asked, “Who is Malala?” When they identified Yousafzai, they shot her
in the head. Fortunately, she was airlifted to a Pakistani military hospital and
then taken to an intensive care unit in England. After ten days in a medically
induced coma, Yousafzai woke up in a hospital in Birmingham, England. She
had suffered no major brain damage, but the left side of her face was
paralyzed, and she would require many reparative surgeries and
rehabilitation. After months of medical treatment, Yousafzai was able to
return to her family that now lived in England. In March 2013, Yousafzai
began attending school in Birmingham. Although she was now able to attend
school in England, she decided to keep fighting “until every girl could go to
school.”[1] On her sixteenth birthday, Yousafzai spoke at the United Nations
in New York. That same year she published her autobiography entitled, “I
Am Malala: The Girl Who Stood Up for Education and Was Shot by the
Taliban.” She was awarded the Sakharov Prize for Freedom of Thought by
the European Parliament for her activism.
In 2014, Yousafzai and her father established the Malala Fund to
internationally support and advocate for women and girls. Through her
charity, she met with Syrian refugees in Jordan, young women students in
Kenya, and spoke out in Nigeria against the terrorist group Boko Haram that
abducted young girls to stop them from going to school. In December of
2014, Yousafzai was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize for her work. At age
seventeen, she became the youngest person to be named a Nobel laureate.
Since then, Yousafzai has continued to advocate for the rights of women and
girls. The Malala Fund advocates for quality education for all girls by
funding education projects internationally, partnering with global leaders and
local advocates, and pioneering innovative strategies to empower young
women. Yousafzai is currently studying Philosophy, Politics and Economics
at the University of Oxford.