Castrating the Congress

By Rolo B. Cena

Random

Dumaguete Star Informer

23 October 2016

In May, when she was campaigning for a seat in the congress, she suffered a lot of stoicisms due to her rivals’ discriminating comments about her gender.  Her friends, as she would later recount, would as well encourage her to reconsider her plan. 

Notwithstanding those dramatic twists during the campaign period, Geraldine Roman dramatically won for a seat in the congress representing the lone district of Bataan.  Dramatically in the sense that it was not only about Geraldine winning the seat, it was about her being the first transgender woman winning that highly contested, noble and national seat.

During the campaign period, she rallied for gender and sexism:  Equality for the LGBT in the same manner as for men and women of the country; and, respect for her and her colleagues in the LGBT community.  These campaign cries sounded too crazy over norms and immoral to devout (or fanatic?) Catholics.

Geraldine would remind us of Attis, a central character of the poem written by one of Rome’s great poet Catullus, Cybele and Attis.  According to the poem, Attis, a natural born man was whisked over the deep sea swiftly by a ship.  As he arrived at the foot of the Phrygian woods, he entered the shadowy forest-crowned mystery of the goddess.  In frenzied delirium, he hacked off his genitals with a sharp object that un-manned Attis making him this time a woman, no longer a man.  She then began to sing her notes and praises for the Roman goddess in that forest.

In like manner, the modern day sexual reassignment surgery Geraldine underwent in 1994 in the US led her to all these.  She is not just an ordinary “castrated” human being, as her rivals would call her, she was schooled in Ateneo de Manila University for her baccalaureate degree; she was also blessed with two masters degree in her field obtained in Spain.  These are enough to prove that the first transgender Congresswoman will not short-change her constituents who voted for her over her opponent, a former mayor, by 60% margin.

In the middle of last week, New York Time Magazine named Geraldine as one of the Most Inspiring Women of 2016.  Joining her in this honor are US Presidential candidate Hillary Clinton, performer Solange Knowles, Olympic gymnast Simone Biles, and Olympic swimmer Fu Yuanhui. This is absolutely an enormous feat for her, a victory she can boast of anytime, anywhere, with anybody.

The recognition by Time Magazine is a story to tell:  That Geraldine would now be singing, like Attis, and celebrating the power of girls and campaigning for gender equality worldwide that resulted from the consistent lobbying for an anti-discrimination bill and for campaigning for equal rights for the lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender (LGBT) community in the country.  Lauded for this noble campaign despite criticisms from peers and the Catholic Church, this is now translated as a crowning glory for every Filipino.

Indeed, she was right in saying that “recognizing (LGBT) rights and dignity will in no way diminish yours.”  In contrast if I may opine, when boxing champ turned Senator Manny Pacquiao called gays as “worse than animals” during the campaign period, that statement somehow diminished his stature and statesmanship although later he apologized but with nonsensical gestures that questioned the sincerity of his apology.  Will throwing LGBT-contained sexist jokes in public add masculinity to a man?  My conscious mind, and even my “id” would object.  That doesn’t change any social or economic or political equilibrium because what makes a man a man is when he is able to stand by his words, literally and figuratively.

Geraldine was empathically quoted as saying during her privilege speech in Congress, “We are not asking for special privileges or extra rights.  We simply ask for equality.  With inclusiveness and diversity, our nation has so much to gain.”  Truly, their battle cry is not for “extras;” their battle cry is only for equal rights.  Granting them such does not reduce the rights and privileges granted to normal men and women of the society; it simply means putting the equilibrium in balance with the normal men and women of our society, the equilibrium that normal men and women should not fear of.

Including them in the system would mean putting the country in equal stance with the symmetry of the world.  Most third world countries now recognize LGBTs as normal member men and women of the society, giving them equal rights as others.  But this does not, however, put this argument enforceable to our own system.  While Geraldine’s election as the first transgender congresswoman is viewed by some as gigantic breakthrough in the Philippine political arena, this does not support the argument that the government may be cowed in to grant their demands.  This is something the congresswoman has to hardly work for.

Putting my two cents in, the honor by Time Magazine to Cong. Geraldine Roman should pave the way for an open acceptance of diversity in gender preferences and tolerance for differences.  Her election should be regarded as an indicator of the Filipino peoples’ progressive thinking and an evident shift to a slow but steady acceptance of gender preferences.  Toward this end, the transgender congresswoman has a very challenging role to play especially that the Congress is dominated by a multitude of machismos albeit the strong opposition of the Philippine clergy towards LGBT.

After all, Cong. Geraldine Roman, along with other members of the LGBT community, deserves beautiful and happy lives.  More than this, they deserve equal rights every Filipino citizen deserves. This should even be a start of a wellspring of support and collective push to keep this country moving amidst various diplomatic and political discourses, unnecessary trading of barbs, questionable war against drugs and fight for poverty.

Thinking out loud, granting them the recognition and equal rights does not change the arithmetical operation of constitutional grants, does it?