Open letter of a breathing human being

Reflection on the Supreme Court decision
The 22 October 2007 Supreme Court decision left transsexual people in the Philippines in a legal quandary. One cannot resist to raise an eyebrow and to have ones heart beat gazillion times in a second. Emotions run high in times like this. Before we let this finally destroy our hopes, it is refreshing to remind ourselves that nothing in this universe is permanent except impermanence and change. No matter how dreadful this decision is, this will pass. People, ideas, traditions, empires, ideologies, systems, and fuck you signs come and go and flow. Current events are just part of the flow of things. And no matter how slow the flow is, it will still flow leading to another stream, river, or ocean. This makes my eyebrow rest and my heart return to its normal beating pace - I hope it can also make yours.

As I have written in the official statement of the Society of Transsexual Women of the Philippines, we are all ignorant. Recognizing this and owning our ignorance would let us approach this matter in a calm, collected, centered, and compassionate manner. The last one is the most poignant.

No matter how hard it is, let us be forgiving of other people’s ignorance just like how we would like to be forgiven for ours. Arrogance in all its permutations will never untie the knot tangled by ignorance passing as intelligence. Moreover, we would just engage ourselves in a highest pee contest if we do so. Nor this would be solved by looking for a messiah that can help us. Humility is a better approach in dealing with someone’s ignorance and prejudice for we are also ignorant and have our own prejudices. And developing personal self-empowerment is better than looking and waiting for our messiah.

Times like this calls for our creativity, courage, and clarity of mind. We cannot have them if we let our emotions rule the course of action that we are going to take. I learned the hard way. I hope that this serves as a caution received not by deaf ears.

Personally speaking, I’d rather have the sex on my identity papers removed and my first name changed into the name that I am known every day by every breathing and living human being except by my birth certificate, my passport, my bank documents, and my school records. Perhaps changing my name is easier than my sex being omitted. I understand.

We still seem to live in a world where we cannot just be humans. Perhaps there is really no “human being” yet that is why we don’t treat each other as human beings but as male, female, boy, girl, heterosexual, homosexual, bisexual, transsexual, transgender, master, slave, child, adult, white, black, Asian, Westerner, feminist, chauvinist, young, old, rich, poor, worker, socialist, capitalist, what have you. It is disheartening to realize that non-living things such as labels, our prejudices, our traditions, our religions, and the ideologies behind them are more important, more alive, and happier than the pulsating, beating, breathing, thinking, and living individual.

Let us have a thought exercise. Imagine how you or someone else would respond to these questions:

1. Would you like another human being to be able to choose an identity, to be able to have a job, to be able to have education, to be able to love another human being?

2. Would you like a transsexual (or any of the label you can think of) to be able to choose an identity, to be able to have a job, to be able to have education, to be able to love another human being?

If your answer is No to any of the question or you hesitate to completely answer in the affirmative, then humanity is still a myth, a dead myth waiting to be alive. You can give me all logical reasons supporting your negative answer and the buts of your replies; logically speaking, I may even agree with you; but one thing I will never do is to let non-living things rule over the living - this I think should be considered one of the crimes against humanity.

Framing the question in the first way reminds us that the dramas we engage in every time we let our prejudice play make a mockery of our humanity for they are so ridiculous, inefficient, and unnecessary.

How can you understand another human being if you don't treat the person just like you, a human being and not as the antithesis of your beliefs? How can you reach a point where you can understand someone who is different from you if you don't recognize that you are both just humans? Isn't it that history has thought us that what you can't understand you will seek to change because that is what our labels, prejudices, traditions, religions, and ideologies want; and if they cannot be changed, frustration will surely lead us to destroy them or ourselves?

When will our labels, prejudices, traditions, religions, and ideologies stop thinking for us? When will human beings be the ones who are important, alive, and happy? Anyone who wants to be just a human being, raise your hands, jump, and reclaim your lives and our humanity, oh please!

When we are not just humans, the concept of human rights is useless.

(Photos from stock.xchng)