Come Out, Come Out Wherever You Are

Night time sharpens, Christine is a muffin.
(My brother's version of Andrew Lloyd Webber's Music of the Night)

This week, our university is celebrating the rights of gays and lesbians. In the Philippine context, where conservatism is held in such high esteem, being among the minority makes one easily oppressed and discriminated. Gays and lesbians are highlighted to be lecherous imbalanced individuals who don't seem to exhibit normal human functions, not to be taken seriously, not to be respected.

In Philippine movies, I would daresay they have formulated quite an exaggerated stereotype of homosexuals - cross dressers with really outlandish accents and unforgivably insatiable desire for the attention of boys, more often the star actor of the said movie. Lesbians have been imaged to be girls with trying hard "punching" accents, loose shirts and a cap worn the other way round, occassionally having superman punches that throw normal bad guys flying to the wall. Are these the people we actually see on the streets?

So many people leaving their stains on the streets of the metropolis, how many perhaps are homosexuals, aside from the self confessed, deluded maniacs who actually wear the opposite sex's clothes professing of God's mistake in assigning their bodies. Are gays and lesbianss supposed to be that superficial? Why become flustered with physical limitations, when one can become far more in the bowels of one's innermost thoughts?

I've known friends who have been involved in same sex relationships. I am in fact in favor of such despite my rather old fashioned upbringing. They prove to be more thought provoking, not to mention open to possibilities and to odd activities compared to normal males and females who are afraid to leave the comforts of the norms. "Decent" males and females who dare not compromise the views of society of them, blindly following standards which define what is male and what is female.

In addition, our society has become so illusioned by stereotypes that actions becomes exclusive to only a particular sex. Watching the film, West Side Story, the men danced gracefully with their torsos tossing and turning with the rhythm; should these men survive to see our times, would they perhaps be mistakened for homosexuals? A girl, angry at her life, frustrated perhaps by the tribulations that burden her, would translate it all with a punch at the wall, does that equate to sexual imbalance or a lapse in one's gender identity? What makes men men and women women?

As vanity is considered to be a "girl thing", or "green-mindedness" associated with manliness, why is that should a girl exhibit a sense of ease with her sexuality or a man be interested in his physical appearance, they are easily labeled as "having a tendency". Aren't such stereotypes limiting rather than fruitful to the well-being of an individual?

Living by such standards, how dare we say we are democratic when we cannot even accept other's freedom of expression? I do comprehend that it is in the acknowledgement of limitations that one could experience true freedom, and yet why limit what is innate? How could the addition of such sexualities become potentially detrimental to the welfare of our society? Would they not in fact be an advancement of man's willingness for change, of man's enticement with evolution or perhaps of man's unbounded capacities?

I welcome relationships with males, females, gays, lesbians, bisexuals and transexuals, for who are we to judge them? They too are human, they too can love, they too deserve to be loved and respected.