 Right, well, whilst we're just dealing with technology, so this is now, I'm glad to have learnt Dr. Jennifer Curry-Joseph, who got her PhD from UP on same-sex desire, and he's going to talk to us about the Chika Dam, but I think also something of her thesis interests as well. And we've got it up. Wonderful. Good morning. It's almost noon. It's almost noon for us. I hope I don't go through another defense. It's almost noon, but I'm going to share with you an excerpt from a chapter of my dissertation, which I defended, I don't remember any more. May, I think. Last May. So, very new. So, this is the very long title of my dissertation. It's called, Bond Talk and Nordin Kanai, Tomboy and Bakla Identities and Desire, Spaces, Intimate Bodies, Histories, and Memories, because I got diverted from my original topic just to provide the context and the background. I wanted to do a study on Igorot Tomboys. That was it. That's what I wanted to do. I'm not an Igorot. I'm not an Ilocano. I'm a Tagalog from Marikina, but I studied in Baguio. So, I've been based in Baguio for, I think, 30 years, more than half of my life. So, through the years, we've been noticing a lot of tomboy and bakla in Baguio City. So, we were wondering where are they coming from? They say they're from the mountain province. So, how come there are a lot of transgenders and bakla from the mountain province when they don't have kids? So, how are they going to multiply? So, what's happening in mountain province? And, specifically, they come from Tadian, Tadian Mountain Province. So, the Tagatadian or Taga Mountain Province, they are familiar that you know that it's called the gay capital of the Coy de Lieras. I don't know if it's the gay capital of the Philippines. But, they really come from Tadian. So, back in 2008, during the first international Coy de Lieras studies conference in 2008, we had delegates from Tadian, coming from Tadian, but are now, we're then based in Baguio. So, they said, so Jayjay, you're doing studies on LGBT. Why don't you study the bakla and the tomboy from the Tadian? Because we have a lot. What do you mean a lot? We have multiple bakla and tomboy within and across generations. So, really, it's a big one. So, there are a lot of anecdotes. There are a lot of stories and anecdotes about this. So, it took me, so 2008, serious study in 2011, exploratory 2011. So, this is part of my dissertation. Okay, I'm sorry, I have to do this. Because it's stipulated in my grant contract. So, of course, I'd like to thank the tomboy, the bakla. The minamakit, which I will explain later, I tried to remove all the LGBT sexuality gender jargon from my presentation. The elders, the elders were among the last generation of those who went to the atu and the ulub. But my tomboy bakla minamakit informants were among the first ones who did not go through the mandatory going through these homosocial institutions of the atu and the ulub. Okay. I'd like to thank, of course, the University of the Philippines. And very importantly, the Amsterdam Institute for Social Science Research of the University of Amsterdam. Then we'll say this conception research grant of the Philippine Population Association and UNFPA. Of course, Cordillera's studies center research grant. Baka is umbunga koneikim. At the University of the United States of America. Of course, Drs. Michael Limpan, my advisor. My adult sensitivity, the co-advisor and reader. And my mother-in-law, auntie June Prelbret. I give her so many episodes of hyperventilation. Maybe she is aware of that. And professors Nester Castro and Maria Luisa Kamagay. Okay. Now, these are my study sites. These are my study sites. So June Prelbret characteristically would say, Jay, Jay, you cannot just focus on that. You have to do comparative. So why don't you include Montoc? Of course, her bias is she comes from Alab in Tokukan, Montoc. So I have an agricultural area. I have a trading center area. While you're at it, why don't you include Sagada? So you have a tourism agriculture trading center. And do not limit yourself to the tomb, boys. Include the bakla. So it took me longer. So I wanted to do, as I said earlier, I wanted to do a study on lesbians because I feel that there are a lot of gays, Filipino gays. You have Michael Lim Tan, Neil Garcia, Martin Manelansan, et cetera. So for the lesbians, nobody's doing serious academic work. Do you have Dr. Kirk here? I presented last year at the Anthropological Conference and throughout 100 that you could demand. So I presented. And then she was the first one to raise her hand. Positive, even if she's here, I will tell this to her. I've seen JJ around you be baggy. And I never realized you were serious with her work. So I told Beatred, is that a compliment or an insult? I'll take it as a compliment. She's gone, right? So Montoc, Sagada, and Tadian. Why these three study areas? So high concentration of tomboy's backline transgenders and reports of high level of acceptance among the families and the general community. So my lowland, bourgeois, U.P. education did not prepare me for the things that I discovered. So I'm going to say, why your society? Head-taking practices. In fact, when I was there late last year, we had to evacuate because there was a tribal war. They were fighting about the water source. And there was a... guns were involved. So it's serious when guns aren't already involved. So... So... Provide ethno-linguistic, cultural, economic diversity. So familiar? So this is courtesy of Itlato, Joey Lopez, if you're from Montoc, you probably know him. This is the Malikongai services. This is Sagada. If you've been to Sagada recently, almost every available space is... there's construction. There's construction boom for the past 10 years, I believe. So every space for hostels, restaurants, souvenir shops, et cetera. This is Stagyan, mainly agricultural community, no mining enterprise. But... the primary baklapa, parloristas, those who work in beauty parlors, were originally from Tagyan. We don't know why, I'm still investigating that. This is Mt. Mogau, or more popularly known as Mt. Cleterace. So this is the picture of Mt. Mogau. So you can draw your own conclusions and encircle the mountain. Okay. When I arrived in Sagada, my first night, and my second night in Sagada, I had dinner with some of the elites of Sagada. They said, oh, you come with me. I have dinner with this friend of mine. Because there were foreign academics and researchers who came to Sagada during the time that I was there. So I got invited also to this dinner. And then during the dinner conversation, my friend said, oh, how come you're researching tomboy and baklava in Sagada? I don't think there are tomboy and lesbians in Sagada. So I said, really, are you serious? So it's very important who you talk to. Do not talk to the elites because they are in denial. They don't say they do not have tomboy and baklava in the community. I even asked for help from this person recommended by Alice Foliosco, a knowledgeable source in the Cordillera. She said, oh, you go to Manan X. She can probably help you. I think she is a lesbian. She's tomboy, but I don't think she's out. But you can ask her if you can intermingle her. So I go to her office and I say, she looks like a cowboy, tomboy, she said, I don't think there are lesbians in Sagada. I look very feminine, ultra-feminine next to her. She says, ultra-feminine, super mega-feminine. Look at me. So she said, I don't think there are lesbians. I don't think I can recommend tomboy here in Sagada. Or baklava. One week after I find out, she has nephews from one brother. One brother only. Four baklava nephews. Right? Anyway, so that's our background story. So what I found in Sagada, in Tadian, and Bontok, the gender identities are confined to the tomboy, the baklava, and in Bontok, particularly, you have the minamagit. It comes from the word mamagit. They coined, they invented this word minamagit. So mamagit means a young lady, or a maiden. So minamagit is like a lady kaslana, kaslana balasa. Okay. So they invented that, they even called the organization minamagit. Yes, they have an organization called minamagit. So these are the things, the significant findings. So ABC, body sexual practices of the tomboy, baklava minamagit, and transgenders. Notice that I would always use baklava minamagit and refrain from using lesbian, gay transgenders, trans men, trans women. Baklava beauty parlor. This is the, actually this is the most developed chapter in my dissertation. Beauty parlor as lived in baklava space, and the third one, itayong. The intimate relationships between baklava, minamagit, and the government soldiers stationed in mountain province during the period of the Chikuridam conflict in the 1970s and throughout the militarization in the 1990s. This, my paper is the first documentation in publication of this phenomenon. I was surprised to find out about this. Okay. So this is Bontok now. This is taken from, I don't remember where, I don't remember from where, but this is Bontok last year, taken last year. So this is the Bontok central district. And one of the things that came in in the 1970s and 1980s was the women beauty parlor, which were eventually transformed into the baklava beauty parlor. So now when you think of beauty parlor, especially in the Philippines, you always associate it with the baklava. Okay. So I feel the baklava beauty parlor as lived spaces, baklava spaces. For the baklava, the beauty parlor is very important for two things. For economic transformation, why? Because third poor, most of my informants are very poor families with many children. So they could not send their children to school. And because of the, I mean, because of the influence of the Episcopalians, so education is very important. So you need to have education. So you go to Bontok or to Baguio or elsewhere to get your college education. So the baklava now goes to the beauty parlor, hands out and become appendices of the older baklava in who owns or operates the beauty parlor. So economically, it's a way to earn a degree and eventually a livelihood. Some of them even own their beauty parlor. Okay. Aside from the economic, it's also it's more than just like new. It's a symbol of space and space for transformation beyond economics. It's their baklava space. It's where they experiment and forge their bakla or may not get identities. They form long-term relationships with other bakla, social networks, economic networks, and that's also where they refine relationships. So I said, I don't care, I don't care, I don't care. I don't care. Of course, I don't care and I don't care. That is sacred. Sacrosan, do not make that connection. I will kill you. I will kill you. So if she's not hyperventilating when I send her an email, a document, I think it's positive. She's not calling me. She's not calling me to come to Baguio immediately for a meeting. When I see Dr. Jumper, but I love her, of course. Okay. In religious history, I also use the lens of historical revisionism. In the course of my research, I find that there are two kinds. There's the negative kind and the positive kind. Historical negationism is what they do with the holocaust or the comfort women, sorry, Japanese sex slaves, and that's what they're doing now. They're even, they're trying to expunge the Cori period from the official Gazette of the Philippines. It came out just yesterday. So, but there's a good kind. It's called historical revisionism. When you find new evidence or the political, military climate is now more conducive for you to bring out your data and your analysis. So, that is what the positive kind is what I'm trying to do. So, I found out that there are two major narratives. One about the Chico River struggle. Of course, there's historical negationism there by Marcos in the World Bank, etc. But, for this paper, I'm focusing on the narratives of the Bacla and the Minamakit. So, I want to finally bring them out so that they can be part of the historical discourses. Okay. This is Bantak-Tang Plaza now. This is, I think, taken 2017. I'm not mistaken. So, this time, because we have in the Philippines, we have a lot of fiestas and festivals. So, there was Amamang and what's other one? Langay. So, this was taken, I think, in between these two festivals. So, there were a lot of Changi flea markets and the topolines. This is the site where the Yang Minamakit, the Yang Bacla okay, were picked up or that's where we have their sexual debut with tourists both foreign and local. So, we have Australian local tourists and also, this where the Yang Bacla in the 1980s would wait for the young soldiers to come out of the bars drunk, and they will have sex somewhere in the dark places along Bantak Central. So, how that plays with Imael because it's taboo to have sex outdoors for the Bantak but maybe they eventually they go to the military camp and outside the military camp there are houses or what they call puestos or stations where they can have sex or in the building houses of the Bacla Pilarista they live with some of the soldiers and officers. Okay. So, there's a boyfriend-girlfriend relationship here between the Bacla and the soldiers remember these soldiers were also young. In the early 20s, the Bacla were in the late 20s in the early 20s also Exploring Exploring, discovering their sexual and gender identities Okay, what were the context? So we try to stay away from factors, variables so what were the context and processes that made this possible? One, prevalence of sexual norms that discourage local young women from socializing informing even friendships nor so intimate relationships with the soldiers. That's not allowed. Local women, if they get interested with soldiers they will not be accepted in the few hotels or lodging houses but they also cannot have sex outdoors because it's not permitted by the culture. You will displease the gods and nature and the rice terraces will fall. No organized prostitution or institutionalized red light district where military camps usually prostitution comes in or the red light district in Montauk there's none. Young, lonely and bored soldiers and officers crossing paths with accommodating young exploring Bacla and Minamukit. What else? The preference of the Bacla and Minamukit for secret sexual encounters with transient populations like the soldiers and tourists. Losing face is very important. I don't want to have sex with the local boy and the whole town will know about it. So I'd rather have this sexual use with strangers with transient populations. Gay sex in the military is commonplace except that there is a distinction between homosexual identity and same-sex sexual practices. The practice is there but the identity may not follow. Jane White in her recent book documented this. The tensions and masculinity of the heterosexual identified soldiers are not diminished by homosexual sex provided that they always play the main role which is the penetrator or the insertor the insertor in anal sex but also always the receiver in oral sex. That's very clear. We can't have demonstrations here. Okay. Reflections. The consideration of gender and sexual identities in Bacla and Tamboy. I'm saying that there's false equivalents between gay vis-a-vis the Bacla or the Maguit and lesbian in Tamboy. They are not equivalent. And for the Bacla and Tamboy in Tadyan and in Mountain Province they are more gender identities rather than sexual identities just like we have in the United States in Europe, in Latin America for example. This one really for me for my LGBTQ plus plus colleagues and researchers. They need to interrogate Western concepts and identities for example I was part of ILGA International Lesbendee Association. It's actually the National Lesbendee Intersex Transgender Trans Inter... It can't keep track anymore. But to keep it simple they just call it ILGA. Okay. So G means sexual orientation before it was only SOGI. So sexual orientation and gender identity. Now it's sexual orientation, gender identity so now we have this long acronym and it keeps longer and longer. So LGBTQQIP to SAEA plus plus. So it's the longest acronym some sectors have called it initialism instead of the local labels. So if I prefer a certain label for example, can I add my own letter there. For example I have this sapio sexual lesbian is sinigang that means you look up sapio, sapio sexual. When I say sinigang from months of writing so I'm already sinigang or tostado my brains are toast. But in Filipino I say I'm sinigang and I also have not taken a bath in 3 days so I smell like sinigang. So even though in both lag which celebrated its 40th year this year, they want to add brown and I've added brown and black to indicate race. So my question is when do we stop? Where do we draw the line to my LGBT plus plus friends. So this active is a passive MSM gay men in US-European Latin American context these labels and categories may not be suitable or applicable in the Philippine Cordillera in other local context. There has to be contextualization one way to waste on which are these really applicable and operant in the local context. And when you say one way can sex really be one way regardless of the activity? It's always the way right? Unless having sex with another human being maybe. Okay. There's a propensity to translate or find counter part of categories and labels local to form, or equal translation, inaccurate or distortion of the meanings. Again in this particular data set as a re-conceptualization or reconsideration of the concept of sexual consent this particular in terms of the Bacla boys the young Bacla in the Ili not necessarily in Bontau in the Ili being asked by the older heterosexual identified boys to give them massages and in this context massage means give me a hand and leading the hand towards the penis of the older boy. But according to them they have the right to refuse if they don't like to massage the penis massage the older boys they can say no and the older boys will not force them. And also with the soldiers and the young Bacla is their expectation that the young Bacla then in Bontau are going to pick the soldiers with whom they will have sex with during that night or relationships for as long as soldiers were in the area 3, 4 months, 6 months and when the wives or the girlfriends of the soldiers come to Bontau they are all friends the soldiers bring the wives and soldiers to the parliament and the Bacla will take care of the beauty needs beauty care needs of the wife or the girlfriend and after she leaves the soldier or the officer is back in the arms of the Bacla Reconceptualization Last point Reconceptualization of sexual pleasure and satisfaction So I was trying to punish myself How can they say they get sexual satisfaction when there is an official logical aspect to it and then one of my mentors said why do you have to define it only in terms of official or in official logical terms there can be other kinds so there is psychological emotional and in the case of the Bacla in the time wise they can even be narcissistic, vicarious or altruistic sexual pleasure I get pleasure when I pleasure you or I get pleasure by the idea that I am getting very skillful up giving pleasure or I get pleasure when you treat me like a woman in our love taking Thank you Your longest I know most of those but what's the two? Two spirit Two spirit Indigenous people in North America So they are only spiritually That was the term developed in the 80s to explain that because very many cultures had people who were allowed to survive considered because they had two spirits both male and female How is that different from transvestite? Well because they had well they were cross dressers but they weren't always transvestite Anyway, they had a place very often a faker spiritual space in things like planes in culture which we also associated with hypermasculinity I have a question June's hyperventilation because I try to make her hyperventilate on this too The term of the bakla parlor being the ulog come from the bakla or is that your reading out? No that's my reading out And the other one was it's interesting when they say all the baklas are from Tatyana because that's the first thing I ever heard in Sagada too and at the time I've discovered there was one bakla from Tatyana and all the other baklas were from Sagada There is this phenomenon too in say India where all the sacred brides are now all Biharis because that's the poorest place So the question is to what extent does a lead denial of bakla and tomboy's status within Sagada in places like that lead them to say everyone is from Tatyana Is there a disproportionate number or is it contributing it without breaking their ideas of their own heteronormativity, hypermasculinity hyper you know I think among the bakla and tomboy in Sagada there's no denial of there are a lot of tomboy's in Bakla in Sagada. What they're saying is that the first bakla cross dress in bakla that we saw were from Tatyana or from Baoko and that gave us an idea that it's possible we cannot just be male or female, there are other possibilities and this was assured in by the coming of the baklang patlorista in Sagada I found when I actually found a lot more of them at that time were actually not from Tatyana so I began to wonder if this was a denial system where you just said they're all from Tatyana except that the elders and the more elite members of Sagadan society of course there's denial what's the STD situation there um for the longest time there's very little incidents of STI and HIV because the preferred sexual practice is Ipipipip it's not anal sex Ipipipip it's also found in indigenous communities in South Africa in the minds of South Africa to prevent teenage pregnancy so the penis is squeezed I don't want to do that squeeze between the legs so you'd notice because the minors the minors would take mine wives young boys as mine wives so you'd know if these boys newly recruited into the mines are wives because you'd notice very shiny legs thighs of these boys lubricant so olive oil but now just last year there have been three documented cases of HIV in Montauk but they are alarmed because it's usually contracted either outside mountain province or because they contracted it with tourists or transient population there's not a denial thing that they're saying that there are a lot of people who are gay is there some kind of cultural thing that they do in Tadjian like maybe it's more acceptable or is there something that's different about the practices I'm still investigating that but because Tadjian used to be your entry point from from the Ilocos but now you will hardly see adult gays and adult bakla and economically reproductive age young boys in their economically reproductive age in Tadjian because there's nothing to do in Tadjian except for agriculture so they are mainly in Baguio in Metro Manila in the parlors in the beauty pilot chains in Manila or in Baguio the young ones those after high school college education in Baguio in Manila would also not prefer to come back to Tadjian so you now can now find them outside Tadjian so in other places where you have beauty parlors in Baguio in Metro Manila the Tadjian would say I don't know maybe it's a diet maybe it's in the water or from local plant based diet to a high sodium high fat fast food that's what they said the try boundary situation maybe it's the other way around maybe they just leave maybe more gay people leave Tadjian because of there's nothing it's a conservative place but why like and it's you find out about it because people from outside say all the people I meet are from Tadjian or gay but I find it's true that older Bacla really come from Tadjian in their 60s and 70s they originally from Tadjian but it's my oldest is 68 years old so he could recall during his boyhood they were already Bacla in Tadjian it was not influenced from somewhere or they had not migrated or gone elsewhere and come back to Tadjian it's organic yes it's not a question don't worry I just want to share going back to the elders of Sagada Sagada for this day during Dal Eid and the tomboy is part of the invocation they performed the Dal Eid they said they would utter that we hope that Bacla would not multiply or the tomboy because it's one reason that they won't reach the elders won't reach the pinnacle of their status in the community if they are related to a Bacla I mean not because of you Bacla or tomboy because they could not multiply and they cannot sponsor wedding feasts necessary to to elevate and to reach the pinnacle that I hold their status and I have one case like that not only one but I am very close to this family tomboy daughter tomboy daughter and Bacla grandson so we're talking of the same person curiously so when I interviewed the elder he did not tell me that I have a tomboy daughter so when I interviewed the daughter in Baguio she also did not tell me oh my father is so and so and he is the pie-holder in Sagada this elders are frustrated actually that they won't reach although they are supposed to be maybe change the criteria changes but if Philippine law changes and you can marry because it's the marriage ceremony that matters so they shouldn't be saying well it's multiplied but you can always adopt there's always been adoption in Sagada so that's not the issue it would be fun to say if legally they can marry and you can hold the babayas so you guys should be campaigning for legislation and not trying to change your kids legislation is a lot more changeable or change the criteria even if you got legal marriage you can have the feast no I think first the law then the change one last question on a positive note it's very good that the wives go to the beauty palace but you mentioned that of the soldiers so does that mean that they kind of giving grudging acceptance if they know they turn a blind eye perhaps and it's unthinkable for them maybe or they would prefer the husband to be with a bakla than with a woman for example thank you very much