Some time ago I visited Bataan, here in the Philippines, for the first time. I was amazed by the scenery, which is remarkable; beautiful mountains, beaches and sea views, amongst everything else. What a richness this country has! Anyway, the highlight of the tour was when a friend suggested going to Las Casas de Acuzar at Bagac.
Bagac is south of Olongapo on Subic Bay and is accessible by bus. Once again, the scenery en route is spectacular.
I was expecting a beach and maybe a nice old village — my friend and guide, Belgie, said ‘There are old houses’. I wasn’t even slightly prepared for what I saw.
‘Gay’ is not an orientation or a preference, it is a lifestyle. In fact it is two lifestyles, transgressive and conservative. In the West, from its beginning in the 1950s, it has become strongly transgressive, after the ideals of homosexuals like Harry Hay, one of the founders.
Hay was a card-carrying Communist Party member who finally realised that Communists hated homosexuals even more than mainstream society did; so his solution to destroying the culture he lived in was to organise and use homosexuality as a battering-ram. Naturally, he had learned how to do this from his Communist Party mentors. So right from its inception, the Western transgressive form was completely rooted in Communism and a desire to overthrow the status quo.
This is completely different from the situation outside the West, where gay lifestyles are usually conservative both socially and politically.
Women should not be hairy. Not if they want to attract men, anyway. I mean feminists have fuck all chance of attracting a man anyway, so for them, who cares? But for all other women, being hairy is a real no-no; well, it is if they want a man.
I’ll admit to being averse to hairy. I find it very offputting. Once, years ago, I was dating — in between relationships, having as much fun as possible; and believe me when I tell you, a single man can have a lot of fun in Manila — when I was approached by a femboy. A short-hair bakla, that is. He suggested meeting for coffee at a place near my condo so I couldn’t refuse. Jeff, he was called.
I’m uploading this here because i have been asked by a follower to elaborate on the various types of Trans expression found here. I have covered this ground before but not in this form. So these are the types of ladyboys found in the Philippines.
Classifying the types of ladyboys in the Philippines is complicated because they are in part influenced by individual sexuality but also by the culture they appear in. The Philippines is similar to but not the same as other south-east Asian countries and markedly different, in significant ways, from the Anglo-West. It has a good deal in common with cultures found in both Latin America and Southern Europe but is not identical to either.
The Philippines itself does not have a homogeneous culture. There are two main reasons for this. The first is that the country is a huge archipelago of over seven thousand islands. In fact, new islands are being discovered all the time. Although many are not populated by humans, most are and this has led to significant cultural diversity between them. It has a population of approximately 120 million souls.
Although she works in Thailand, Yuki is Filipina. Pic courtesy of Cine de Rose Ladyboys
The second cause is the location, on two major navigation routes: east-west and north-south. For hundreds if not thousands of years, visitors have been coming to the islands and implanting both their genes and their cultures. But these implantations have not been uniform; they have varied in effect greatly, say from Mindanao in the south to Luzon in the north.
The cover picture shows me with two ladyboys, just so you know its all real; one of them is Homosexual, the other Autogynephilic, but can you tell which is which?
A unique culture
Today, Filipino culture remains essentially Malay, which is part of the Austronesian language family, but on top of that are European/Christian influences, especially through Spain, as well as Arabic/Muslim, Chinese, Japanese, Korean and of course, US American ones. All of these have had an effect on the overall culture of the Philippines and the precise flavour of the mix is unique. There is no other country in the world quite like it.
Gays in Manila
Ladyboys and gays
In Asian Culture, the terms ladyboy and gay are the standard English translations for a plethora of local terms such as bakla, kathoey, waria, nuhafu and many others, which all describe the same thing: an unmasculine male. Not all of these present as girls by any means but all consider themselves to be ‘girls inside.’ The dichotomy of gender identity here is not man and woman, but man and not-man. (Professor Don Kulick explains this well.) One is either a man or a not-man; that’s it. All the ridiculous made-up ‘genders’ that are so fashionable in the West are subsumed into one: not-man. To be a man, one must be male, masculine and a penetrator, in sexual terms. Everyone else is a not-man. I belabour this point because in the first place it is crucial to understanding gender in Southeast Asia, indeed anywhere outside the West and also because so many Westerners seem incapable of understanding it.
Essentially, ladyboys and their equivalents are unmasculine males who either pursue sexual and romantic relations with masculine men (not others like themselves,) or make a show of doing so. Note again, the Platonic notion of ‘like goes with like’ is regarded as absurd here; opposites attract, as is logical. Although some ladyboys do have sex with each other, this is situational: they can’t find men to do the honours. Ladyboys in relationships like this will typically identify as Bisexuals, of which more below.
I have met significantly more than a few Asian autogynephilic transvestites and the majority profile is quite clear.
They tend to have their first ‘feelings’ at around the age of 15-16 and begin HRT, usually in the form of contraceptive pills, soon after that. While late-transitioning autogynephilic transvestites do exist, they are rarely public. A good recent example would be Ian King, a racing driver and son of a wealthy ‘Fil-Am’ family. Social class and gender are strongly linked, as we shall see.
This particular individual fits the Western profile of the Autogynephilic transvestite exactly, but that appears to be related to his social class. This is interesting, because a similar social divide is found between masculine presenting homosexual males, macho gays locally or the New Gay Man, and the traditional highly feminised type. Here again, the former tends to be rare and found only in higher social strata, while the latter is both much more common and more associated with lower social class.
Ladyboys are like hobbits; they have big feet. Although, and fortunately, not usually hairy.
My dearest and truest friend, my distant confidante and beloved adopted sister, Andie, is sitting on the brown vinyl sofa in my rented condo in Pasig. She has delicately hoisted the hem of her long floral skirt with one hand and with the other she is holding one of her slippers — flipflops in Filipino — against her leg.
‘Ugh,’ she says. ‘You see? My feet are longer than half the length of my shin.’
She drops the slipper and the hem and takes to regarding her feet with evident distaste, elbow on knee, chin cupped in her hand. She wiggles her toes.
‘I could possibly cut them off,’ she muses. ‘I should cut them off.’
Many people seem to think that ladyboys are a recent phenomenon, but this is far from true. It’s hard to find older material but I found this story on a Philippines website, from a publication that is now defunct. The name of the author is not known. It gives insight into the ladyboy pageant scene in the country and across south-east Asia, and also reinforces the observation that the ‘gay’ and transgender scenes are closely intertwined.
A pageant can be a small local affair with a stage set up on the back of a truck, or as grandiose as the Miss Tiffany contests, held in Thailand, or Super Syrena, in the Philippines.
Temporary wives been known for centuries in southeast Asia. In the past, this might have been arranged directly with the girl’s mother. The girl would bring all of her father’s business connections with her and would be the primary contact for the foreigner’s trade with the locals, negotiating on her ‘husband’s’ behalf, keeping accounts, arranging payments and receipts and acting as secretary. Some temporary wives became permanent ones.
The tradition of temporary wives began in what was then the Dutch East Indies, but rapidly caught on. Temporary wives had advantages for everyone; the traders got the benefit of local contacts and knowledge and better prices and terms. The girl’s family profited, since naturally she would channel as much business as she could through it.
The man had a stable domestic life and regular sex, which meant he would not become a denizen of the whorehouses and opium dens; and he would have a presentable, locally-fluent companion who could accompany him on business and official trips and engagements. (It was said that the best language teacher in the world was the pillow!) To make it even better, the costs could be set off as legitimate business expenses, since temporary wives were technically employees.
In the recent past I have been asked about my definition of homosexuality. This appears to be mainly from people who erroneously use the term ‘gay’ to mean ‘homosexual.’ As I have already stated in articles, ‘gay’ is a lifestyle that encompasses many who are not homosexuals. Homosexuals may be a subset of ‘gays’, but they are not the same.
Yuki, who is male, is a gay or a homosexual in Asian terms. She’s gorgeous, obviously. Pic courtesy of Cine de Rose Ladyboys.
Until the intervention of Alfred Kinsey in 1946, the definition of homosexuality — Karl Maria Kertbeny (1824-1882) coined the term “homosexuality” in 1869 — was understood to apply to an effeminate male, often stylish and artistic, who desired to be the receptive partner in sex with conventionally masculine males: men. ‘Homosexual’ was intended to replace terms like ‘sodomite’, ‘catamite’ and so on.
The ‘wet market’ or palenke in Pasig City is really huge and spectacular. You can buy anything there, believe me. it’s a fun place too, literally open 24/7/365. Keep your wallet in your pocket and you’ll have no problems.
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