Summary
Highlights
France Villarta recounts growing up in the southern Philippines in the mid-1990s in a close-knit community where privacy was limited, but understanding of diverse family structures was common. She introduces Lenie, a popular transgender woman in her village who ran a beauty salon, highlighting her acceptance within the community despite gender variances.
Villarta contrasts the rigid man-woman gender dichotomy prevalent in many cultures with the historical gender permissiveness found in various communities globally, including the Philippines. She explains that while many cultures use biological sex as the primary basis for gender, others have long accommodated gender variances.
Before Spanish colonization, Filipino societies were animistic and largely egalitarian, with women holding significant power, including the ability to divorce, own property, and influence family decisions. Villarta emphasizes the crucial role of the 'babaylan'—shamans who served as healers, spiritual guides, and community defenders. Intriguingly, historical records show that some male babaylan cross-dressed and exhibited effeminate characteristics, suggesting an acceptance of gender fluidity.
Spanish missionaries, during 300 years of colonial rule, actively imposed a two-sex, two-gender model, clashing with the pre-colonial gender-variant-permitting culture. Early Spanish chroniclers speculated about the celibacy or physical 'deficiencies' of cross-dressing babaylan, yet other documents like 'The Bolinao Manuscript' and 'The Boxer Codex' reveal male shamans marrying women and engaging in same-sex relationships, indicating a more complex understanding of gender and sexuality than the colonizers initially perceived.
Villarta discusses the contemporary debate around gender definition, noting how countries like Australia, New Zealand, and Canada are introducing non-binary legal options. She asserts that prevailing notions of static genders are social constructs, which, in the Philippines' case, were an imposition. Villarta concludes by highlighting that social constructs can be reconstructed to embrace diversity, promoting a world that learns from and works through differences, and calls for validation and recognition for all gender identities.