Proud woman

When the chance to return to Hong Kong arose, I did not have second thoughts and immediately said yes to the invitation from Dr. Sam Winter to speak once again in his Sexual and Gender Diversity course at the University of Hong Kong. (see pic above) The first time I did so was in 2009. But already it feels like a long time.

It is my hope that more of the world will see the many other Filipina transactivists who are here in the Philippines, working hard to make real change.Many of them have overcome the stage of "victimhood." Of course we always acknowledge the travails and hardships that come with being trans but more and more of us seem to be rejecting the victim mentality and really taking charge of our lives. They are not just complaining about how hard life is they are actually doing something about it, dreaming big, breaking barriers and going after jobs that transwomen of the past generation would have never dared go into: human resources, management, entrepreneurship, health care, information and communications technology, journalism, foreign language teaching, research, etc. I am truly in awe of this great community of sisters, proud transwomen, working to make Philippine society a better place.

W cannot marry

A decision on a case that I have been tensely monitoring from Manila has finally come out and sadly the outcome is most unfortunate. You will remember W, the transwoman from Hong Kong who in August filed a petition so she could marry her long-time boyfriend. Because Hong Kong law does not allow changing the sex in birth certificates, W's potential marriage to her partner would be considered same-sex marriage, which is also not allowed in Hong Kong. You can read more here.

The High Court where she lodged her petition has finally come out with a decision that disallows her from marrying. In the decision, the High Court essentially washes its hands off the responsibility to decide whether transpeople in Hong Kong can marry or not. The High Court leaves it up to the legislature to decide.

I can see shades of the infamous Silverio decision here. Mely Silverio is an accomplished transpinay who 3 years ago petitioned our Supreme Court (SC) for a change of name and sex in her birth certificate. An amended Clerical Error Law passed in 2002 which disallows changing any Filipino's sex in his or her birth certificate led to the SC to deny Mely's petition and left it to Philippine congress to decide on the matter of birth certificate sex-changes involving transsexual Filipinos.

The irony in the Hong Kong high court's decision is that W can actually marry a woman and socially it will be a same-sex marriage. And so presently, even if Hong Kong law does not allow such, it can actually happen if one spouse is transsexual. The High Court dismisses this particular reality and the bigger reality of the existence of transpeople. I think this is a good opportunity for the global transcommunity to give the Hong Kong High Court a highly deserved rude awakening.

Hong Kong Day 3: It Could Happen To You Redux

On Thursday, 28 January 2010, Santy and I agreed to go out. Half an hour before midnight, I was dressed and ready to see her in her hotel downtown. I myself stayed over with the Winters, in a spare room they keep for guests. On my way out, I saw Sam Winter in the kitchen and he decided to come along with Santy and me. We picked Santy up at her hotel and when we were all together, we decided to go to a place playing live music.

It was a bar called Amazonia in Wan Chai and when we got there, the first thing I noticed was that it was packed with white guys and pinays (short for Filipinas). All the waitresses were Filipina and the guys who brought along dates, brought Filipina women. Even the band was all-Filipino. A waitress led us to a sitting area near the side of the stage where the band was playing and we ordered drinks. While waiting for them to come, we decided to go down to the area in front of the stage to dance.

The band’s lead singer was this cute pinay and when she saw me she gave me a warm smile. After about 3 songs, the band’s repertoire shifted to slow songs which I thought were not very danceable. We decided to go back to our seats and enjoy our drinks. After the set of slow tunes, the band went on intermission and the bar played canned dance music. They played recent hits by the Black Eyed Peas, Shakira, and Lady Gaga and others. Meanwhile, we were all having fun dancing to all the songs.

Beside me was a Filipina with a group of foreign guys. We danced together and she said that all her guy friends who were sitting a few step from us had a crush on me. I said I was very flattered but not interested thank you very much and remarked that she was not bad looking herself. It was then that I kind of figured out that she was a sex worker. When I looked around I saw more of them hanging around in pairs or alone cruising the guys inside the bar. I paid them no mind and kept dancing with the pinay I just met until the song ended. I went to the lady’s room because I felt very hot and needed to pee. When I came back, I asked Santy and Sam if they wanted to have some fresh air outside. We took our new round of drinks with us, made our way outside and stood by the side of the entrance, where other people were also standing around with their drinks. I asked a waitress to take a picture of us (see below).



We were there for about half an hour and at Bar Amazonia for almost 2 hours already. When we heard the band inside play a good dance tune, we decided to go back to the dance floor. Sam went in first while I and Santy followed him behind. Sam was already in and I was about to go in as well when the door man/bouncer, a short, pudgy looking Chinese guy in black shirt and jeans, put himself in front of me, with his arms spread to the sides, barring my entrance. I said, “Excuse me” and he said “No!” while shaking his head side to side. I said, “I’m sorry but what’s the problem? I was just in there an hour ago?” He just looked at me icily and said no again without saying anymore. I was starting to get annoyed. At that point, people inside started to look on.

I saw Sam rushing back outside to us and when he got to the door he started talking to the bouncer. He asked him what the problem was and he said, “I’m sorry sir but no ladyboys allowed here. We are not a gay bar.”

I got very angry at this remark and addressed the door man, “You just fucking insulted me. I am not a ladyboy. How dare you!” Sam told the door man, “These are women!” pointing at Santy and me. “I’m just doing my job,” the bouncer said. He then directed us to the manager, another short and stout Chinese man in a light blue shirt and slacks, who was by then standing at the door. “Talk to the manager if you want,” he said. I went up to the manager and told him that just around an hour or two ago, we were all inside enjoying ourselves dancing to the music. We went out for air and when I tried to go back in, the door man blocked my way. I asked the manager, “What is the problem? What happened between now and then? Have I done something criminal that you do not want to let me in?” The manager just looked at me, with no emotion on his face, and pointed to a sign at the door saying that management reserved the right to refuse entrance to anyone they choose. I said that that was insane because we were just in the bar and we even danced in front of the band. He said sorry but it’s their policy. Santy had my camera then and she started taking pictures of our argument (see picture below). The manager looked at her and said, “No pictures please!” but Santy said, “I don’t care. I will take pictures if I want to!”



Sam needed to go back for his credit card inside so he excused himself. The manager followed him in and we were left standing in front of the bouncer who was looking at me with hate in his eyes. I could not stop myself and started to berate him. “You are such hypocrites. Don’t think that I do not know that there are so many prostitutes inside your bar. You allow prostitutes to go in your bar but you will not allow someone like me. I am not a fucking prostitute! Do you hear me?”

The bouncer got enraged, turned red and started to pick things up to throw at me. First he picked up plastic cups in a stack but it flew in the wrong direction. Then he picked up a small bottle of mineral water but missed me again. The bottle cap hit my left hand though but it did not hurt. At that point, some men from inside and outside rushed to stop him. He was screaming “I’m just doing my job all right! I’m just doing my job.”

One of the guys who calmed him down, a Australian lawyer working for the University of Hong Kong came to my side and asked what the matter was. He knew Sam and they started speaking about what just transpired. Sam informed the lawyer that the manager was refusing to let us in because we were transgender. The lawyer said that that was not right especially since he saw me earlier dancing in front of the band. He said, “But I saw you in there earlier and you were having such a good time.” I said yes that is why I was surprised myself that they did not want to let us back in.

We discussed the matter some more but at that point all I wanted was to get out of there so we thanked the lawyer for his kindness and left.

Hong Kong Day 1: It Could Happen To You

My talk at the University of Hong Kong in their Sexual and Gender Diversity (SGD) undergrad class was happening on the 27th of January but I and Dr. Sam Winter, professor-in-charge of the SGD class and an ally and advocate of the transgender community and author of Transgender Asia Research, agreed that it would be a good idea to come earlier so any other pre-talk concerns could be smoothed out with enough time. So my flight out of Manila was booked for the 26th and I was scheduled to come back home on Saturday, the 30th. I left Manila Thursday via Philippine Air Lines flight PR 306 at 2:45 pm (see pic above), and arrived in Hong Kong two hours later. The Philippines and Hong Kong lie in the same time zone so I did not need to adjust my clock upon arrival.

I flew to Hong Kong on an uneventful flight. Immediately after stepping off the plane, I could not wait to take pictures to document every step of the trip. A long time ago, I gave away winter clothes which I had accumulated working cold nights for a call center in the past. Most of them were rotting away unused in my closet so when I had the chance, I gave them to friends who started working for call centers themselves. For this trip I had to borrow from friends warm clothes for the Hong Kong winter cold to avoid having to spend unnecessarily money that I could use in the trip instead. 



A while back, I had written here about the humiliating experiences of several Filipina transwomen who had passed through Hong Kong immigration. Apparently, transwomen have been singled out by Hong Kong airport officers for "standard security checks". This means that once a transwoman approaches an immigration counter to exit into Hong Kong, she has no assurance of entry. Instead, she will be passed on to a chain of several people until she finds herself in a holding room where she will be interviewed by a senior immigration officer, the end result of which is anyone's guess.

There the interview will vary from a brief polite exchange to insulting, heated argument between the transwoman and immigration official on why the former wants to enter Hong Kong. Through the trans community grapevine we have heard of transwomen who have seen the insides of that infamous holding room of being accused of illegal activity in the Chinese Special Administrative Region (SAR), being required to empty out their wallets to prove their financial capacity to stay in Hong Kong, and the worst one yet--of being asked to strip naked for a body search. I know some people who have not been exempt from these troubling practices and they were slapped with a limited number of visitation days (the standard is 14 for all tourists) by being allowed to stay between one to two days only, detained in the holding room for varying lengths of time (sometimes under an hour, sometimes more), and the worst of all--deported back to Manila immediately which in local Filipino slang is called "airport to airport" or A to A.

So it was with great trepidation that I approached this trip. But although I was anxious, at the back of my head, I still kept thinking that this immigration hitch was never going to happen to me. I was so wrong.

The immigration officer asked for my passport. He went through it and when he seemed finished and satisfied (the entire thing took about 15 minutes), he called over an older guy, Guy Number 2 and asked me in a terse tone to follow him.

At that point I started to get angry. While trying to follow after Guy Number 2, I said in a curt and cutting tone, "Excuse me sir, but what seems to be the problem?". Guy Number 2 seemed to have sensed the unhappy tenor in my voice and answered nicely, "Oh just standard security check." After passing through the immigration line but not yet exiting, we got to the middle of the airport where Guy Number 2 stopped at a group of airport security-looking people and then handed us over to another person, Guy Number 3. Guy Number 3 began escorting us and so I asked him the same question. With a hint of a smile and very politely he said, "It's just standard security check." I asked him, "How long is this going to take? I have someone outside waiting for me." Guy Number 3 answered. "Just around 20 minutes or so."

At that point, there seemed to be nothing that I could do but just go through the process. I followed Guy Number 3 who ended up taking me to the infamous holding room. After waiting for a few more minutes, we were asked to see a senior looking officer, Guy Number 4.

He took me into one of the cubicles and asked me questions (i.e., What are you here for? When are you leaving? May I see your return ticket?). After noting my return flight, he thanked me and I was good to go.This time, a lady immigration officer escorted me to a special immigration counter where a surly looking guy took my passport and asked for my name. After this, I exited into the baggage claim area.

And so it came to pass. What I had been dreading finally happened to me. How silly of me to think that I was "special" and immune from such treatment. I know this is a bit of a thorny issue and I will talk about that point in another post. But my main point is: all transwomen affected by this issue should come together and discuss how to move forward in responding to this humiliating process already institutionalized at the Hong Kong airport. At this point, there is no sense in finding who to blame because as it were, it is a problem that already affects us all. We must unite and stand up to this unneeded harassment and not exclude anyone in the conversation. After all, this is a clear case of discrimination that does not choose, that includes us all.