Written by: Angela Lanuza
Graphic Design by: Gio Tidon
Trigger Warning: This article will include mentions of Abuse, Sexual Assault, Homophobia, Transphobia, Conversion Therapy, Mental Illness, Violence. Please read at your own discretion.
The SOGIE Equality Bill and other similar anti-discrimination endeavors continue to meet obstacles. The Trans Murder Monitoring Project (TMM) documented 1,509 murders of trans and gender varient indiviuals between 2008 and 2014, 20 of which occurred in the Philippines. However, Naomi Fontanas, co-founder and Executive Director of GANDA Filipinas, suspected that hate crimes against transgender and diverse gender oriented people are higher than what was reported on the website. She cited Jennifer Laude as a classic case of violence against a transgender, whose murderer, Joseph Scott Pemberton, was recently pardoned by President Rodrigo Duterte, also known for his homophobic comments. He used them as slurs against political enemies such as U.S Ambassador Philip Goldberg, referring to him as a “gay son of a bitch” and Manuel Roxas II as bayot (a Bisaya word that means gay and may be used in a derogatory fashion). Duterte has utilized it as a comparison between himself and Antonio Trillianes, declaring that he was “cured” of his gayness while Trillianes persists in his.
Unfortunately, slurs against the LGBTQ+ community are nothing new. They hint at a pervasive belief that treats homosexuality and gender non-conformity as something bad, as illnesses that can and should be “fixed.” In the following paragraphs, we discuss acts of violence against the community that remain under-reported.
Conversion Therapy
Also known as reparative therapy, it is a range of practices that operate on the belief that an individual’s sexual orientation and gender identity can be “cured” to fit accepted gender norms. This is done through medication (anti-psychotics, antidepressants, anti-anxiety and hormone injections), electroconvulsive therapy, vomit-inducing drugs (which may be given as punishment to correct behavior), exorcism or ritual/religious cleansing, force-feeding and food deprivation, forced nudity, and forced isolation and confinement” (International Rehabilitation Council for Torture Victims, 2020, para. 3). Psychotherapy, which aims to shame and to discredit a person’s sexual orientation and gender identity is also included.
An example of invasive conversion therapy questions encountered by Ben (pseudonym) are lifted from a 2019 CNN Philippine Report by Chad de Guzman:
“There is a list of questions that you answer. I don't remember all of them, but some questions that are being asked are: Did you masturbate? Did you have lustful thoughts? Did you have a compromising situation of any member of the same sex? Things like that, as in questions that ask if you had anything to do with acting on homosexuality, And at the end of all those questions is, ‘Did you lie to the group?’”
Some religious beliefs interpret homosexuality as a sin and so “praying the gay away” becomes a solution to something that isn’t a problem. The American Psychiatric Association, International Rehabilitation Council for Torture Victims, and many organizations have concluded that conversion therapy has no scientifc or medical foundation and that there is no need to use it. It can be assumed that these practices are for the benefit of the perpetrator, not the victim. It is an act of torture, a hate crime that makes human value conditional on whether they fit societal norms or not.
Corrective Rape
Under the umbrella of conversion therapy, lies forms of corrective violence. Corrective rape is when the motivation of the rapist is to “correct” the behavior of a person who doesn’t conform to gender or sexual orientation norms (Doan-Minh, 2019, p. 167). It is done to violate one's bodily autonomy and sexuality identity, a core aspect of an LGBTQ+ person’s sense of self (p. 179-180).
Tshidi, from ActionAid’s publication: Hate Crimes: The Rise of Corrective Rape in South Africa, shared their experience:
“This guy wanted to go out with my girlfriend so one day he picked me up with a crew of his gangster friends, they took me off the street and to an abandoned place where they beat me with a spanner and did whatever they wanted… All the time they were telling me this is what happens when a woman pretends to be a man.”
Discussions of rape don’t often include victim-survivors that aren’t heterosexual. Rape has never been about about attire or behavior. It is about power. The perpetrator seeks to force their power on the victim. Doan-Minh (2019) posited that rape is also a tool of war, used to strike fear and to subjugate a population to the wills of the conquerors (p. 178). From this, it can be said that corrective rape operates in the same way, as a tool of discrimination against a victimized community.
Effects on Mental Health
Conversion Therapy cultivates feelings of betrayal towards the people who subjected the victim to the treatment (IRCT, 2020, para. 12). Parents may believe that they are doing what is best for their children and a person may be motivated to agree or volunteer for conversion therapy because of familial and societal expectations. However, the repression of their identity and emotions reinforces beliefs of “wrongness” or “brokenness” that can further injure their sense of worth (para. 13).
An Australian-based report about religious conversion therapy reveals that people who feel that they have to choose between their faith and their gender and sexuality experience great psychological and spiritual trauma (Human Rights Law Centre, para. 5). Some may even force themselves to be someone they are not, creating feelings of powerlessness, shame, guilt, self-disgust, and worthlessness (as cited in IRCT, 2020).
This is the case of Ice (pseudonym), a lesbian woman in the afrementioned 2019 CNN Philippines report:
“Maybe if I had sex with a guy it would turn me straight. So I tried, and I tried, and my studies suffered”
Those subjected to this treatment may develop posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD), stomach ulcers, and other stress and anxiety related illnesses, skin diseases, migraines, sexual and eating disorders, vomiting and insomnia.
Phulma from the ActionAid publication shared fears that remained even after the corrective assault:
“Every day you feel like it’s a time-bomb waiting to go off, you don’t have freedom of movement, you don’t have your space to do as you please, you are always scared and your life always feels restricted.”
The Fight For Inclusive Spaces Continues
Ingrained anti-LGBTQ attitudes are changing but it is still not enough. Group-based and gender-based violence are political and systemic. The negative connotation of terms such as bakla and tomboy; conditional acceptance through phrases like “you can be gay as long as…” or “you can dress like that as long as…”; and the refusal of using someone’s preferred pronouns, are few examples of small aggressions that pave the way for violence to operate on a large-scale basis and yet remain unspoken of. There is a numbing quality to the habitual tolerance of disrespect, you dismiss it enough times until you can excuse even the most inhumane acts.
To quote Rambo Talabong from his 2019 article, as he explained why “praying the gay away” doesn’t work:
“I am gay and there is nothing wrong with me. You cannot fix what is not broken.”
This is a call to make perpetrators accountable because LGBTQ+ rights are human rights. This is a call for representation in politics, a voice, a seat to be part of important legislative decisions. Representation in cultural material that aims to tell authentic and diverse stories. This is a call for more gender-inclusive education for children and adults because empathy is a lesson we must continue to learn. Violence is taught, we can unlearn this.
Change can start small by being open-minded to experiences that are different from yours. You can start by asking how you can help, ask what their chosen pronouns are, and respect their answer. Take note of your biases, especially in your language, if it’s offensive and hateful, do you really still need them? It might take time to fully understand but your effort and willingness to learn can make all the difference. It’s not the LGBTQ+ community who needs to change who they are, it is the culture, the system, and the people within them that need to stop limiting the definition of what it means to be human. So, we may live in a society that celebrates diversity and doesn’t silence it.
References:
Bennett, M. (2018, October 26). Report reveals harm caused by LGBT religious conversion therapy and calls for action. Retrieved September 23, 2020, from https://www.hrlc.org.au/news/2018/10/27/lgbt-religious-conversion-therapy
Cupin, B. (2016, April 14). 'Bayot, bakla' don't mean 'weak,' transgender bet tells Duterte. Retrieved September 25, 2020, from https://www.rappler.com/nation/elections/transgender-roman-duterte-lgbt
De Guzman, C. (2019, July 3). When 'praying the gay away' didn't work. Retrieved September 25, 2020, from https://cnnphilippines.com/life/culture/2019/7/3/gay-conversion-therapy.html
Doan-Minh, S. (2019). Corrective Rape: An Extreme Manifestation of Discrimination and the State’s Complicity in Sexual Violence. Hastings Women’s Law Journal, 30(1), 167-196. Retrieved September 24, 2020, from https://repository.uchastings.edu/hwlj/vol30/iss1/8
International Rehabilitation Council for Torture Victims. (2020, September 16). Conversion Therapy is Torture. Retrieved September 23, 2020, from https://irct.org/media-and-resources/latest-news/article/1027
Martin, A., Kelly, A., Turquet, L., & Ross, S. (2009). Hate Crimes: The Rise of “Corrective” Rape in South Africa. ActionAid. Retrieved from https://www.actionaid.org.uk/sites/default/files/publications/hate_crimes_the_rise_of_corrective_rape_in_south_africa_september_2009.pdf
Mercado, N. (2019, May 31). Duterte asks LGBT community in Japan: Is Trillanes gay? Retrieved September 25, 2020, from https://globalnation.inquirer.net/175819/duterte-asks-lgbt-community-in-japan-is-trillanes-gay
McKirdy, E. (2016, August 11). Philippines President Duterte insults US ambassador. Retrieved September 25, 2020, from https://edition.cnn.com/2016/08/10/politics/duterte-us-ambassador-comments/index.html
Placido, D. (2014, October 14). LOOK: Map shows multiple LGBT slays in PH. Retrieved September 25, 2020, from https://news.abs-cbn.com/focus/10/14/14/look-map-shows-multiple-lgbt-slays-ph
Talabong, R. (2019, May 31). President Duterte, praying the gay away didn't work for me. Retrieved September 25, 2020, from https://www.rappler.com/voices/rappler-blogs/president-duterte-praying-the-gay-away-did-not-work