Neema Ejercito (she/her/hers), Low Entropy Volunteer Writer
I don’t know if it’s me being a perpetual cinephile ever since I was a kid, or my interest in theatre since high school, or my university background in sociology, or all of them combined, but I have always had a kinship for 2SLGBTQIA+ culture. It may not have been as defined as it is now, but I think my openness to the arts and show business exposed me to different lifestyles and forms of self-expression that were guided by sociological studies.
I remember the Kinsey scale, which was basically a theory that we were all on a spectrum of sexual orientation from heterosexual to homosexual. I took this theory I learned back in my uni days a step further to add that there will come a time when every teenager’s puberty will actually involve a gender exploration of sorts until they settle on one, or they may forever be exploring. As my awareness of the 2SLGBTQIA+ population grew, I just saw it as a fulfillment of what I had concluded from the scale.
As well, as my second son grew, and as he shared with me the growing pains his peers experienced in their gender realizations and the struggles they often had with their parents, I sympathized with them for being forced to grow through the pandemic, wrestling through what their bodies were telling them and what the authorities in their lives were forbidding them to be.
I also recall what a uni friend of mine, now living in Toronto, shared as he helped his nieces and nephews in their gender explorations. He is so supportive of the “alternative” lifestyle. His life is the kind I only read about, complete with nude to glamorously themed parties straight out of uni. He was the youngest and fastest employee to become a manager in a prestigious bank in the Philippines and was dating a famous female newscaster personality. He was saddened that part of the struggle of his nieces and nephews was that they became too fixated with labels instead of just being who they were. But perhaps because they were being forced to define themselves so early without being given the space to freely be who they were, whether asexual, aromantic, etc . . . they were forced to quickly figure out their pronouns and scoffed at for changing their minds or tweaking their choices.
I think it’s in the exploration that 2SLGBTQIA+ culture becomes so fun! We learn to not take ourselves too seriously, and experiment with colour, music, language and whatever forms of expression help us become our true selves. Experimentation and expression is not for everyone, but for those of us who support 2SLGBTQIA+ culture, being called an ally is such an honour. These are just people being people, and their culture just happens to speak to us allies so well.
Behind all the fun, feathers and rainbows though, is a lot of grief, shame, and all the difficult, heavy emotions that perhaps some in 2SLGBTQIA+ communities deal with through laughter. But like any great comedian, perhaps some of the loud, seemingly devil-may-cry attitude stems from the burden of knowing what it’s like to not be laughing, to be silenced and boxed, to say the least.
In Philippine entertainment media, I grew up viewing homosexuals as comic relief, whether as the sidekick who was always made fun of, or the funny friend the protagonist runs to when they’re down. On YouTube, I’ve seen videos of a straight person’s gay friend who does everything for them because they are just that together. As fun as the 2SLGBTQIA+ culture is, I hope we as a society grow along with them and help support them just as we would ourselves and the everyone we love.
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Before returning from her summer vacation in the Philippines with her partner and three offspring last year, Neema Ejercito did not realize that she still had so much to write about, such as the boredom she felt raising her eldest at her in-laws’ place when she and her husband hadn’t moved out yet. Or how surreal it was to watch her youngest learn to swim at the country club where she learned to do so as well. She currently wonders if she will ever write about being a mother to a bunch of plants, all of whom she adores and loves to watch grow as much as her kin.