taxonomy
“Mahirap ba maging bakla?” I asked. It was a harmless question but it cut through her anyway. Her. What a strange pronoun to use. It’s not one I would like to use but JR, who now goes by the name of June, insists on it.
“It depends. Alam mo naman, maraming klase ng bading.” The others looked at her as though she just told us the world was square and not round. “Maraming marami! Kasing dami ng kulay sa pinaka-malaking box ng Crayola! And together, we all form a magical rainbow.”
“Typical,” I thought to myself. “Lacing truth with humor so it doesn’t seem so blunt.”
“Di niyo ba alam yun? Maraming klase ng bading.” June began. “May bading na parlorista, may bading na effem. ‘Yan yung typical na maingay, walang time kung makapag-pulbo at minsan nagda-damit babae. ‘Yung parating naka-pambabae, draggar. Merong nagpapaka-lalake na walang tigil mag-gym. ‘Yun yung tipong nambabarurot sa kama! Merong mataba. May specific market naman ‘yan. Merong payat. May matanda. May bata. Siguro depende yan sa klase ng kabaklaan mo. Sa Pilipinas, mas madali maging bakla kung pa-discreet ka. Straight acting daw eh nakakabahing naman ang pagka-paminta nila.”
“How ironic,” a friend chimed in. I was grateful she broke the silence. Our more conservative friends were still in shock.
“Bakit naman?”
“For a lifestyle born out of diversity and known for open-mindedness, you people sure do engage in a lot of stereotypes.”
Photo Credit: La mala educación
 | Garbage Cherry Lips (Go Baby Go!) beautifulgarbage |
I have always thought it so curious for my grandmother to feel so uncomfortable using "she" and "her" with transgenders when in our native language there is no distinction and she can't get it right in English under other circumstances half the time anyway.
ReplyDeleteI don't see the enumerating of many of the different recognized categories of bading to be inconsistent or contradictory to a state of open-mindedness or of diversity. In order for their to be diversity, there must be a discrimination between different things, otherwise it wouldn't be diversity. Just one big chaosmotic monad -- the big infantile fantasy of the CBCP. In order to recognize the illusory nature of reality, we must first recognize reality.
picking the mind of a trannie is something i want to do. Never met one. I want to hear first hand their opinion of straight acting gay people. hmmmm.
ReplyDeletepukiloo.... pampressure ang crayola ng balor mo.... balentayms na balentayms na....
ReplyDeleteI have high respects for the tranny and parlorista at work. They seem less intimidating and snooty than the likes of me.
ReplyDeleteanech itech? :)
ReplyDelete@LOF ~ kinda like how you need to accept the reality of evil to be able to do good?
ReplyDeleteyour grandmother must be actively using the female pronoun. i'm guessing she really pays attention to these things. the fact that Filipino has no gender-specific pronouns drives me crazy. i have trainees who get confused with the pronoun and antecedent.
as for not seeing the contradiction, my apologies. the original conversation was more vulgar than this. i couldn't really write it down verbatim. it seemed (to me, at least) that while the whole thing was very entertaining, june had some pre-conceived notions with each gay guy type. that's why i took a mental picture of the conversation.
@engel ~ you'll meet all sorts in this industry. i noticed there are a lot in directory assistance. haha i wonder why.
as for their opinion on straight acting gay people, i wouldn't really know. june says they make her sneeze. :D
@yj ~ aba shempre! pang balentayms hehe
@galen ~ true. once they take you in, they'll take care of you as long as you don't cross them. some of my best gay friends are trannies.
@angelo ~ itech ay chismes. hehe kumbaga sa twitter, OH.
@erik ~ c:
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ReplyDeleteactively using the male pronoun! with bakla its the only time she gets it "right" in her mind. maybe that observation can help you with your unhelpables.
ReplyDeletewell in my profession, no one is ever unhelpable. haha but i get what you mean. maybe i need to analyze the cause to understand the effect.
ReplyDeleteSino si ate? Pangalanan nang mapangarangalan!
ReplyDeleteone has to admit: our world is not a boring world.
ReplyDelete@vic ~ kwento ko sayo pag nagkita tayo. haha hayaan mo, papangaralan ko siya for you.
ReplyDeletesan pala yung stress nung word na yun? diba it can mean bigyan ng award or iberate?
@geek ~ but of course. what are we if not colorful?
"For a lifestyle born out of diversity and known for open-mindedness, you people sure do engage in a lot of stereotypes."
ReplyDelete- It's funny (laughable, actually) because it is true.
i'm still confused sa post. hehe.
ReplyDeletebut just to react on the last sentence, hehehe. :) that truth sure does amuse me. :)
i heart this.
ReplyDeletepero ang truthfulness eh some people will not just get it ... yun lang ..
anyway .. i'm looking forward to our coffee contingent .. hehehhe
you cannot tell a person how to live their lives or how to see themselves.
ReplyDeletethey have the right to be who they want to be.
i am sometime pamin, sometimes pagurl, sometimes totally out of this world
i have parlorista, pamin, and transgender friends. a transgender friend of mine, sass sassot, was even invited to speak by the u.n.
they are proud of who they are and coexist beautifully.
just because some people in the gay community are narrow minded and tend to judge by labels, doesnt mean you can stereotype the gay community as a people at war amongst themselves.
are there not different types of heterosexuals as well?
hindi mahirap maging bading. mahirap lang maka kilala ng mga taong makikitid ang utak.
im happy. peaceful. enlightened.
i have learned to accept the people i love for who they truly are.
and i know well enough not to judge those who are not a vibrational match to my being.
do not judge or stereotype people just because you don't understand.
let them be.
mahirap na masarap. makulay at makulimlim. masaya kahit madrama. basta, kakaiba! :)
ReplyDeleteAng cute naman ni ate. They all form into a magical rainbow!! I'd love to see that. Haha. Infernes lang. :))
ReplyDeletehow ironic indeed. tagos na tagos ang comment ni friend :)
ReplyDelete@mak ~ and when the laughter dies down, that's when the real trouble begins.
ReplyDelete@angelo ~ it's just that because it's in our nature to classify, a lifestyle that should embrace everybody starts to judge and act out on each other. all u need to do is go to any gay forum and you'll see people who are anti-effem anti-this or anti-that. it's just a little funny.
@bernadette ~ i hope one day all tribes will be united. haha hope lang naman.
yup! let's coffee soon! :D
@paulo ~ wow. thanks for visiting. hmm.. where do we begin?
yes, it's a free country and just as free as i am to write down my thoughts here, you're free to agree or disagree too.
if you're the paulo i think you are then yes, you are a perfect example of how hard it is to classify people. this post was simply about how hard we try to put people in labels and boxes. i don't really like that.
i didn't really mean any harm by posting the judgments you read in this post. it was just something i found interesting and truth is, it sucks to be classified like that. at the end of the day, i just wanted to remark on how odd it is that a taxonomy exists in subcultures.
i completely agree. napakaraming tao na makitid ang utak but this is the world we live in and i guess we just have to find a way to happily co-exist.
it's good that you accept everyone for who they are. i hope i didn't offend you with this post. i would like to see your page. i wish to read more thoughts like the one you left on your comment.
@aris ~ amen! :D
@pau ~ sige pakilala ko kayo. hehe
@lee ~ nagulat nga ako sa katapangan nya. buti di na-offend yung friend namin.
Nyl: perhaps paulo misses the irony that in order to be able to perceive someone for "who they really are", one must make a number of judgments about what that is, in order to accept "who they really are"...
ReplyDeletebut sterotyping works and keeps the society operational hehe
ReplyDelete@nyl hello. nakita ko kasi yung comment mo sa blog about jujiin's exhibit. i thought i'd visit. hindi naman ako galit o na offend haha. wala lang ako magawa. namimiss ko na kayooooo. si almi i ran into him once sa shang. i miss high school. im so fucking old.
ReplyDelete@line of light there is no irony in accepting someone for who they are, for there is no judgement from my part, for when you let go of the ego, the "education", the brainwashing, the conditioning, the virtual wall we were taught to build around all of us, how we "should" think, how we "should" be, what we "should" believe in... once you learn HOW TO BE... there is no irony. believe me, once you see things from an ego-free perspective, once you learn to be FREE, you will learn to accept life for what it is. beautiful. love. fair. magnificent.
and you will learn that those who do not agree with your vibration do not necessarily need to be "judged", but you will actually learn to ALLOW them to be who THEY ARE.
judgement is no longer in my vocabulary. i have evolved past that. so, no, im not missing the irony here.
i am merely HAPPY.
or perhaps the fact that i accept people for who they are but work in fashion is the real irony here?
hahahahaha
eyelovette.
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ReplyDeleteDIVERSITY
ReplyDeleteThere is such a tendency to say, "Well, I would do it this way, and if you don't do it the way I do it, then there's something wrong with one or the other of us." And that isn't true at all. You are just approaching things in different ways, all working. Whether it seems like it or not, you are all working toward the same ultimate goal of joy.
Paulo: i do not dispute that narrow-minded is a problem of inappropriate or "broken" judgment. however, perception and intelligibilty presuppose judgment and discrimination. otherwise, there would be no differentiation and nothing would be intelligible or perceptible making it impossible to "accept" someone or something since there would be no judgment available to determine that there existed someone or something in need of "acceptance".
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ReplyDeletei smile.
ReplyDeletei look at my boyfriend, our dogs, then outside our window.
i think of my friends, my life, what i have and what i am.
i love, and i do not judge.
i do not make excuses. i do not try to explain.
words cannot explain what it is to love, to accept.
to be.
i look outside our window.
what a beautiful, judgement-free day.
i am lucky.
i smile.
@lof ~ exactly. to understand differences, we need to embrace them.
ReplyDelete@dave ~ and while the process hurts sometimes, it is still very essential to the community.
@paulo ~ sabi ko na eh. hehe thanks for visiting. we all want to live in a world without judgement or fear but sadly, this is the reality we live in and it's up to us to ensure that our lives are as free from hatred and judgement as possible.
@lof (comment 2) ~ perhaps it's because we're strong realists that's why we're often misunderstood. haha
@Nyl: i think paulo and i agree, i just think he's skipping two important steps which logically end up undercutting his own argument... because true love is founded on seeing things as they really are (and as I mentioned, perception and intelligibilty presuppose judgment)... the epistemological foundations of reality is indeed a tar baby...
ReplyDeletebecause it takes real love to see a person's brokenness and not want to leave.
ReplyDeleteit takes real love to see what is ours and what is not ours, what is theirs and what is not theirs... and then to accept it all... a lifetime struggle...
ReplyDeletei agree, we all belong into the same hard drive but we are so fond of partitioning it to this and that.
ReplyDeletei think stereotyping is not exclusive for a certain group of people. i guess it's human nature for man to classify things and box them up according to his preference.
"I could not believe that such a body was for free"
ReplyDeletemiss this song... madownload nga hehe...
' whoaa that last line was an eye opener.. come to think of it, we all suffer from stereotyping in any form irregardless of sexual orientation.. it just so happens nah dahil nga lifestyle nila at explosive and outstanding creativity, napaka-ironic nga naman..
ReplyDelete@max ~ that's a beautiful metaphor. why didn't i think about that? grrr.. hehe
ReplyDeleteyes, it's part of human nature to want to classify and stuff. we even have a whole study devoted to it. it just sucks when it's our turn to be classified.
@glentot ~ i love this song too! a lot of people thought beautifulgarbage lived up to its name- garbage but i really liked it. i was actually thinking of androgyny for this post but in the end, my love for cherry lips prevailed.
@thelastjedi ~ thanks for visiting my blog! :D welcome. :D
irony is a funny thing. it makes you feel smart when you see it but when it happens to you, it kinda sucks. (no pun intended lols)
it only sucks if you are embarrassed by your own humanness..
ReplyDeletei didn't see ur last comment. my apologies.
ReplyDeletei like what you said. ma-twitter nga. hehe
and yeah, i am a little embarassed. not because of my humanness but by how easily i can be classified. i wonder how it feels to break the mold.
haha @ magical rainbow. :) the world will indeed be black blue and gray if not for the gaylaloos!
ReplyDeletehow odd. i'm in black, blue and grey ngayon. haha
ReplyDeletepsst..penge tickets sa kris allen. haha
aliw ako sa mga comments. ^^ we should shatter those labels. nasabi na nila lahat ng gusto kong sabihin.
ReplyDeletepala, nagugulo ung feed mo sa inbox ko. naglipat ka pala ng add. hopefully naayos ko na. ^^
love, kisses and such! ^^
hmm... i will have to think about that...
ReplyDelete@toxic ~ oo nga eh. balak ko sana mag-announce ulit sa old url kaso baka masyado namang papansin. buti nakabalik ka. :D
ReplyDelete@lof ~ who wants to be classified, ryt?
i am thinking about the requirement that for something external to effect us, we must, on some level consent to it or it must resonate with us internally... so my question to myself is: how is the problem of "being classified" an internal problem?
ReplyDeletebasta may isang salita at lalaki kausap maski baklang bakla pa, nirerespeto ko yan
ReplyDelete@LOF ~ i think it is. it's all a question of your attitude. if u don't mind being easily classified, it shouldn't be a problem.
ReplyDelete@cio ~ maganda yan. respect shows a lot of maturity.
I think it depends on where you're from. Here in the Philippines, it's not as hard as say, in the Middle East where homosexuality is considered taboo. :)
ReplyDeletetrue true. now those people have a problem. :D
ReplyDeleteI still think its an internal problem fundamentally, especially if its taboo.
ReplyDeleteinternal like inside a person's brain or within a group or organization?
ReplyDeleteinternal to the person's soul/mind/heart....
ReplyDeleteif we say that judgement is a constant and that there is nothing we can do about it then taxonomy becomes an internal problem. i agree now. hehe
ReplyDeletehmm. is it easy na maging anu ka?
ReplyDeletehehe ;)
epal lang
judgment is a constant insofar as it is the basis for an experience of the universe. taxonomy, as the practice of classification, is a way to put different values on those judgments (this is what Paulo had a problem with, but conflated it with judgment in general). therefore, classifying is always first an internal matter -- in experience. i can't speak to the final cause, that's a mystery of nature.
ReplyDelete@careforyou ~ i think everyone here's pretty at peace with their identities. no harm. :D
ReplyDelete@LOF ~ where would we be without these mysteries anyway? hehe very well said, lance.
super malapit ako sa mga gay friends ko...
ReplyDeleteand yes!
iba-iba sila...
love the part na inahalintulad sa box ng crayons!
MAKULAY!!!
:P
maihahantulad ang mga bading sa sinabawang gulay. nakakakulay ng buhay! haha
ReplyDeleteoo mahirap maging bading!LOL
ReplyDeletetaray nun a "we all form a magical rainbow" haha
haha i think she just wanted to cover up yung harshness nung sasabihin nya. hehe
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