Women's Month may be coming to an end, but today (and every March 31st) we celebrate another important day for women: the International Transgender Day of Visibility.
To commemorate this important day, non-profit organization PridePH released a highly emotional video about the discrimination transgender students face in schools as a movement to #MakePHSchoolsInclusive.
The video, "Batang Hinarang sa Lupang Hinirang", features Jelai Balbaera, a student and transgender woman, being forced to present herself as a male student during the flag ceremony.
In 2017, the Department of Education released a memorandum that recognizes the sexual orientation, gender identity, gender expression, and sexual characteristics (SOGIESC) of teachers and students.
In its Gender Responsive Basic Education Policy (No. 32, s. 2017), teachers and students are respected and are allowed to dress according to their gender identity.
However, many schools refuse to follow this and transgender students like Jelai continue to be barred from being free. Jelai hopes that this video raises awareness for the plight of transgender students in school: "Kailangan po namin ng tulong dahil dini-discriminate po kami ng school namin." ("We need help because we’re being discriminated by our own school.")
PridePH National Convener and Miss Trans Global 2020 Mela Habijan says, "Transgender students and teachers deserve to be in schools and to present themselves as they are!"
Mela hopes that this video will convince schools to follow the DepEd memo, for DepEd to create a new memo directly stating that transgender and non-binary students and teachers are free to express themselves as they are in schools, and for DepEd to impose sanctions for schools that do not comply.
DepEd has reiterated its memo last August 19, 2022. However, there is no penalty or punishment for schools that do not abide.
Mela believes that the fight to recognize and protect the rights of transgender students in the Philippines is far from over. "We continue to get tragic accounts of trans nenes (girls) and totoys (boys) who are prohibited from expressing their true selves by their schools. Yet, we shall continue to fight."
Mela herself recognizes the importance of acceptance when it comes to living as your authentic self. As she said in her thank you speech at the Cosmopolitan Women Of Influence Recognition Dinner:
"Maraming maraming salamat dahil kinikilala ninyo ang aking tinig. Higit sa lahat, kinikilala ninyo ang aking pagkababae. And hopefully this affects everyone in the Philippines and beyond, to just simply look at us as a woman, as a person, as a human being."
There was hardly a dry eye left in the room after her heartfelt yet powerful speech, and Mela's inspirational message carries even more importance as she is a visible representative and outspoken advocate of the LGBTQIA+ community—her community.
"I’m living a happy life because I have two parents who just simply embraced a trans kid like me. And hopefully more parents will be like them. Because nothing beats the feeling of that happiness that comes from a loving home, that simply accepts you and embraces you for who you are and what you can do."
During the same Recognition Dinner, director Samantha Lee, another of our Cosmopolitan Women of Influence 2023 awardees (and an LGBTQIA+ advocate herself), had the perfect closing statement to what we believe *women empowerment* truly encapsulates:
"When we talk about the empowerment of women, we have to consider all the forms that we come in. We're people of different bodies, different genders, different SOGIEs, different faiths, different class backgrounds, different abilities, and so much more. We need to take into account all these differences, because without this kind of inclusion, feminism means nothing."
And to paraphrase our March 2023 cover girl: C'mon, it's 2023. Let's do better.
