This past January I watched Lino Brocka’s film, “Macho Dancer” newly restored from 1988 at the MoMA, hearing for the second time in my life tagalog spoken in a theater. As we sat through long and soapy dances of these two boys cleaning and touching each other, I think of a few things. I think of how they are being watched, yet perform with cheeky smiles as friends. I wonder if they would have performed like this in private spaces? Do they perform their masculinities too? I think of the power the US has held over the Philippines through acts of imperialism when we see white foreigners in the crowd. I keep reading and hearing from the crowd leaving the theater that these scenes were a little too long, too soft core and pointless. But it was in these scenes that I came back to thinking on queerness in the Philippines. Socially, queer and gender non conforming identities are generally accepted and visible. Everyone has a bakla tito or a tita that’s really a tito. It was actually in the Philippines where I first saw the real and public acceptance of queerness, spoken about without secrecy or judgement. In the United States it always came with a sense of othering this gay/lesbian/trans person “my uncle is gay and he's not allowed to marry his partner”. But in the Philippines that was just our family member or neighbor, no explanations needed or questions asked. And despite all of this social acceptance, the government will dig their heels in the ground and refuse to provide basic rights. Even in the context of this viewing, these reels I saw were smuggled into the collection of the MoMa out of the Philippines, where he faced heavy censorship due to its content. With frank depictions of queerness, corruption, poverty, and the erotic, we feel the tension between lived social acceptance and the legal realities, within the world of the film and the real Manila.
I think of the United States. We’ve been moving backwards, removing protections fought so hard for by activists before us and among us today. and while I don’t think trans and gnc individuals should accept discrimination and attacks from the government, I do think we should look to the philippines and the beginnings of the lgbtq movements in the US. I do not believe in these institutions. In the Philippines, corruption is evident, known and visible. The United states has disguised itself as this presentable country that protects its people. It hasn’t!! I don’t know what to tell you but it hates its people. It hates black and brown people. It hates immigrants. It hates us. Certain sectors of the LGBTQ movements (STAR, GAA) in the US were never to provide legal and political rights and recognition to queers, it was based in the basic distrust of the government and reforming communities around that. What does it matter to be recognized by a government that you have no faith in? That bombs cities? That defends the killing of citizens in their cars? Why fight for trans rights in the military?
I think of all of this watching a soft core bathing scene, of course. I think I’m supposed to sit in this discomfort and consider where I could place myself in this gay club in manila in the 80s. I think queer + trans people are defined by resilience. I think in recognizing that the government is not for us, we turn to community. We are stronger when we work together— use these critical moments to define our future, to establish safe spaces and build communities that you want.