Transgenders

I was having lunch the other day with some military officers when one of them suddenly asked, “How were your student elections in UP?”

I braced myself, knowing what the question was going to lead to, certainly not related to the lecture I had just given, which was on public health security issues.

My hunch was right and within a few minutes, the lunch became quite animated as I was bombarded with questions about all the headlines around our new university student council chair at UP Diliman. One of the officers even remembered her name, Heart Diño. Heart’s legal name is Gabriel Diño but prefers to be referred to as “she,” a “transwoman” and the UP Student Council’s first openly transgender chair. This election was quite radical with other gender-twisting victories: Alex Castro, an open lesbian, won the post of vice chair, while another transgender, Pat Bringas, won as councilor.

The conversation with the officers focused on Heart but early on, I realized the officers were confusing gender identity and sexual orientation, that is, equating homosexuals with transgenders. That’s not surprising; even UP professors in medicine and psychology still make that common mistake. Given that March is Gender Awareness Month, I thought I should clear up the confusion, as I did, I think, with the officers. (I have to say I was quite pleased that they had such an interest in the issues, and were not in any way condescending about it.)

Sexual orientation

Let’s deal first with sexual orientation, which in western psychology would have the following labels: heterosexual (men attracted to women, women attracted to men), homosexual (men attracted to men, women attracted to women) and bisexual (men attracted to men and women, women attracted to men and women). The term “gay” is also used, usually referring to men attracted to men while “lesbian” and “gay woman” refers to women attracted to women. Gay has stronger connotations of an identity and political involvement—for example, “gay rights” or “gay activism.”

It’s not surprising that many languages, including those in the Philippines, do not have local terms for “heterosexual” or “homosexual” because these terms were first coined only in the 19th century, in Germany, and originally had clinical or medical connotations. The Tagalog “bakla” is often used as a translation of “homosexual,” but this is not quite correct. “Bakla” refers more to an effeminate male, rather than a sexual orientation.

Transgender is a term that was coined even more recently and refers to someone who lives between (thus, “trans”) being male and female. “Bakla,” in its earlier meaning, comes closer to transgender. A transgender is someone who believes he or she was born into the wrong biological sex. Thus, Heart Diño speaks of being a “transwoman” because, while born male, Heart believes she should have been female. There are also “transmen,” born female but convinced they should have been male.

“Trans” people are usually identified with cross-dressing, but asserting a transgender identity also involves modifications in voice, body movements, even the body itself, to become more like the sex they believe they should have been born into.

Another question I got from the military: Are transgenders the same as transsexuals? In fact, one officer followed it with a question of whether Heart Diño was, you know, his hands making a chopping motion.

The term transsexual is an older term that was used to refer to people who wanted surgical intervention for sexual reassignment.  I have to clarify there is no “chopping off” involved but reconstructive surgery.  (Whew, don’t ask me to describe the surgery here.)

To summarize, transgenders and transsexuals are labels used around gender identity while homosexuals, heterosexuals and bisexuals refer to sexual orientation. Most homosexuals are comfortable with their biological sex and have no desire to cross-dress or to adopt behaviors of the other sex. And many local transgenders have no intention of going through reconstructive surgery, but do want to live as women.

Now, fasten your seat belts as I make that distinction with a brain twister. You can have a transman who is attracted to men, which would mean that the transgender would be, in the terminologies of western psychology, a heterosexual. Now if that transgender has sexual reassignment surgery and becomes a man, she will still be attracted to men, but now that she has become a he, will now be considered a gay man.

Simple, no?

Normal, abnormal

As a medical anthropologist, I keep emphasizing that culture plays an important role in configuring all these identities. In the Philippines and in most Southeast Asian countries, transgenders are very visible, allowed to cross-dress in public, even in school and at work. In UP, there is even an organization called UP Babaylan, which is an LGBT group, meaning an organization for lesbians, gays, bisexuals and transgenders, with transgenders forming the majority of the membership. Both Heart Diño and Pat Bringas, another transgender who made it into the UP Student Council, are members of UP Babaylan.

LGBT people have existed since time immemorial, long before those terms came about. In many societies, LGBTs were marginalized and had to live very secret and tormented lives. If there was anything abnormal about them, it was the way their lives and social relationships had to be kept underground.

Today, with many LGBTs organizing for civil rights, there is more tolerance for sexual diversity, and has allowed them to come out of the shadows to live normal and healthier lives. Heart is a BS Mathematics graduate, magna cum laude, and now working on a degree in applied mathematics. I’ve lost count of the transgenders who graduate with honors, accompanied by proud parents to the stage during recognition ceremonies.

I did ask my military friends what the Armed Forces’ policy is on homosexuals and transgenders. They smiled and one finally answered that there is in fact no official written policy. They said they were aware of homosexuals in their ranks, even among officers, and had no problems with their gay comrades. One even mentioned that gay men excelled when it came to combat and then added, mischievously, that they were also always very neat with their uniforms.

Transgenders?  The officers said they didn’t have problems hiring transgenders as civilian staff but that serving in the military was another matter, and the time wasn’t right yet. I thought of the Philippine Military Academy, which didn’t accept women until the 1990s. Today, the women do as well as, if not better than, the male cadets.