On Jennifer Laude, violence, and transgender Filipinos

One of my biggest fears as a transgender person or someone who identifies as a gender other the one assigned to me at birth is to die a violent death. I morbidly joke with my friends that if ever something terrible happens to me, I can just imagine the next day’s headlines, “Bakla, pinatay” or “Bading, pinagsasaksak, patay.” I predict that the media, in reporting my hypothetical murder, will surely not use my preferred name, Naomi, which is the name that my friends, some relatives and office mates call me by but instead use the name I did not choose. For sure, the media without my consent will use my “legal name” just because it is the one found in my green-colored NSO birth certificate. 

 

I predict too that the media will not use the pronouns I prefer to be addressed with (female ones please: she, her and hers) but will decide that because the name and gender in my official documents including my work ID, professional license card, passport, and social security card, are “male” then I should be referred to using male pronouns, in spite of, hopefully, protestations from people who knew me, shared my life and intimately knew that I lived my life as Naomi Fontanos, as female. 

 

This is exactly what happened when Jennifer Laude, a 26-year-old transgender woman, was killed in Olongapo City, Philippines on October 11, 2014 allegedly by Pfc. Joseph Scott Pemberton, a US Marine who was here for joint military exercises under the Visiting Forces Agreement (VFA). Jennifer Laude’s passing, while deeply lamentable, has also put a spotlight on the issues facing the trans (short for transgender/transsexual) community in the Philippines.

 

Bakla and tomboy do not equal transgender

 

Starting with what to call us, most Filipinos including the media were confused on how to describe Jennifer Laude and address her. Part of the issue is the old, nonsense rhyme that most Filipinos grew up with and shaped their ideas about gender: girl, boy, bakla, tomboy. Immortalized and systematically reinforced by a movie starring the Philippines’ No. 1 gay comedian, Vice Ganda, “girl, boy, bakla, tomboy” is how the average Filipino understands gender. 

 

In this system, transwomen like me and Jennifer Laude are also called “bakla,” while our counterparts, transmen like Aiza Seguerra, are called “tomboy.” Even if I say that I am not “bakla” or “bading,” which are indigenous terms for effeminate males and Aiza Seguerra says he is not “tomboy” or a masculine female, most Filipinos will still conclude that being transgender means being “bakla” or “tomboy.” 

 

This demonstrates the discursive power of “bakla” and “tomboy” as gender markers. Whenever I explain this when I do advocacy work, I say that Vice Ganda is an example of someone who identifies as “bakla.” I do not. I identify myself as a transwoman, female or a woman. No matter how much the world insists that I am otherwise, it will not change who I am. Tomorrow, before I go to work, I will wear women’s clothes, will take the women’s train and go to a female toilet if I need to use the bathroom. Insisting that I am “bakla” and therefore male will not change how I see myself. It is society that needs to change the way it thinks of me. This is my identity and my life, and I decide who I am and how to live it as much as I let you decide who you are and how to live your own life. 

 

Real gender, real identity 

 

In spite of this, people will deny who we are. The denial can run the gamut from mocking us to fighting with us over who decides our identities. This explains why one major broadsheet in the Philippines has taken the editorial decision to address Jennifer Laude as male, repeatedly call her by her legal name Jeffrey, use quotation marks when calling her Jennifer, and do everything in their power to get sympathy for Pfc. Joseph Scott Pemberton. A columnist from this broadsheet even went as far as calling Jennifer Laude a “rapist,” when two used condoms from the crime scene suggest that Jennifer Laude and Pfc. Joseph Scott Pemberton had consensual sex. 

 

This goes back to the belief that Jennifer Laude was not really a woman but a man disguising as a woman. From this bigoted point of view, it is impossible for a person like Pfc. Joseph Scott Pemberton to be sexually attracted to someone like Jennifer Laude. A fact check will show this is not the case: Pfc. Joseph Scott Pemberton picked up Jennifer Laude at a bar. Whether or not he knew that Jennifer Laude was trans, he still picked her up. If that is not attraction, I do not know what that is. I wonder, too, what the same columnist would think if I introduce her to my ex-boyfriends, who all identify as heterosexual men and had romantic relationships with me. 

 

This only shows that many Filipinos continue to have a hard time making sense of transgender people and our identities. But, from where we stand, our gender identities are not whimsical and are as clear as day. We are not “fake” men and women. We are real people. We are real men and women, and our genders are real. 

 

A caveat on hate crime

 

Now we hear that there are legislative proposals to protect lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender (LGBT) Filipinos from bias-motivated crimes. The plan is to amend the penal code and make punishments harsher for crimes in which the victims are LGBT people. I am not sure if this is a step in the right direction. What lawmakers need to do is to enhance anti-violence interventions in the Philippines so that they address the violence, abuse and discrimination that LGBT people face. Passing a law will not stop violence. It will also not raise the quality of LGBT people’s lives. Our lawmakers should listen to the wisdom of anti-violence advocates who say that criminalization will not reduce anti-LGBT violence. 

 

Otherwise, there will only be more Jennifer Laudes. We already saw this when weeks after Jennifer Laude’s murder, two transgender women from Quezon province were reported to have died from violent attacks. In fact until now, there are unconfirmed reports that on the night Jennifer Laude died, two other transgender women’s lifeless bodies were found in two separate sites in Olongapo City. 

 

This cycle will keep repeating itself if we do not address the message that the recent spate of transgender murders is sending to the public: transgender people deserve to be brutally murdered. At this point, what we need are not more laws. What we need is to dismantle the culture of violence that runs rampant in the Philippines buttressed by age-old patriarchal beliefs and attitudes, unbridled sexism and machismo.

 

These same elements in our culture will allow someone, hypothetically, to murder me some day, show disrespect towards my gender identity, and leave me with no dignity in tomorrow’s headlines.

 

 

Naomi Fontanos is a transgender rights advocate and Executive Director of Gender and Development (GANDA) Advocates Filipinas, a human rights advocacy organization led by transgender women in the Philippines. She dedicates this article to Jennifer Laude who will be memorialized during the 2014 Transgender Day of Remembrance (TDOR) on November 20, a day set aside to remember murdered transgender people around the world.

The views expressed in this article are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the position of this website.