Lies against the Sogie bill
THE Sexual Orientation and Gender Identity and Expression (Sogie) Equality bill is being maligned by people who have not read and fully understood it.
What is even more offensive is when people whose job it is to make laws are at the forefront in peddling lies to mislead the public. Senate President Vicente “Tito” Sotto 3rd is one of these people. As the leader of the Senate, Sotto should exercise prudence in criticizing proposed laws. He must demonstrate to the public the proper way, one that requires careful analysis of what is being proposed.
And here, Sotto fails miserably. He accuses the Sogie bill of providing a backdoor route to legalize same-sex marriages in the country. He anchors this mistaken notion on his wrong interpretation of the proposed provision that prohibits anyone from denying a person any license on the basis of the latter’s sexual orientation, gender identity and expression. He argues that this would include the issuance of a marriage license. He even cultivates an unfounded fear when he stressed that a public official can go to jail if he or she denies issuing a marriage license to a same-sex couple.
Sotto fails to understand that the Sogie bill only refers to discrimination against persons who are otherwise qualified to obtain a license, solely on the basis of their sexual orientation, gender identity and expression. The law does not have any provision that changes the requirements to obtain a license. Certainly, a member of the LGBTQIA+ community who is blind cannot obtain a driver’s license, or someone who failed a licensure exam cannot be issued a professional license.
The proposed law has no provision changing the requirements for the issuing of a marriage license.
Currently, applicant couples should meet these requirements, which include that they should be of the opposite sexes, of legal age and have no existing valid marriages. Thus, Sotto is peddling fakery when he asserts that same-sex couples can now demand that civil registrars issue them marriage licenses.
Beyond misreading of the provisions, what also stands out are unfounded fears that with the Sogie bill, trans women will now descend like mad women on female restrooms, thereby putting at risk the women of this country. There is fear that women will now be vulnerable to sexual predators dressed as women. It is understandable to have this fear, and the duty of any rational public official or citizen is to bring the issue back to reason.
It behooves to ask how many cases of trans women, or men dressed as women, harassing girls and women inside public restrooms, have been recorded at any given time.
Over the 35-year history of non-discrimination laws that include provisions on transgender persons all over the world, there was only one case reported in Canada of a transperson who took advantage of such laws and committed sexual assault. This only means that for 35 years people have entered restrooms that are now compliant with non-discrimination laws all over the world, and we can just imagine the number of times people of different sexual orientations availed of such facilities, that there is only one case of sexual assault reported. In 2014, the United States Federal Bureau of Investigation reported 84,000 cases of rape in the entire US, and none of this was committed by a trans woman inside a female restroom, more so by a man dressed as a woman. And yet, critics of the Sogie bill are making it appear that this is a normal occurrence with high probability. And that there is reason to fear it.
Another unfounded fear propagated in relation to the Sogie bill is that it will open the floodgates for nuisance suits filed by the LGBTQIA+ on the slightest perception that they have been discriminated against, particularly in hiring and employment. At the outset, this is a clear case of prejudice that paints the LGBTQIA+ as irrationally litigious. But even then, one has to ask what is the problem if applicants or employees demand an explanation from employers if they feel they have been discriminated against by virtue of their sexual orientation, gender identity and expression. In the end this will force companies to be fair in their hiring and personnel decisions and employ robust rubrics in evaluating applicants and employees in accordance with law. A company employing fair labor practices would not fear a suit from a disgruntled applicant or employee, whether that person belongs to the LGBTQIA+ community or not.
Another argument raised against the Sogie bill is that it will violate the right of religious schools to freely practice their faith. The right to exercise one’s religion is indeed constitutionally guaranteed, but it is never absolute. It could be limited when it denies others their rights. Sectarian and religious schools, other than preparing their believers to become religious, like seminaries or convent schools, must always be weighed against public interest. If the role of the school is to prepare believers to take up their faith, then it may assert its rights against any move to undermine the free exercise of such.
But if the school is run as a public entity offering educational services and taking advantage of its tax-exempt status, then it cannot assert full and absolute rights. It is subjected to full state regulation by the Department of Education or the Commission on Higher Education. Thus, while those who follow the faith of its owners will be granted the benefit of fully exercising their faith, it must accord academic freedom to its faculty and staff and must respect the rights of its students who are not followers of the religion of its owners as provided by prevailing laws.
Certainly, a lot of the criticisms are based on unfounded fear without full understanding. But the advance of anti-discrimination initiatives across history has always required that those who are not discriminated against give up some of their comforts and privileges, as long as their legitimate rights are not diminished.
Lies against the Sogie bill
What LGBT kids need to hear
This is for the thousands of children who were taught that they are nothing but abominations, for the kids who are disowned by their parents, for the students kicked out of schools, for young people harassed in the streets
By: Jake Consing
“Act like a man.” That was the motto of my high school. Growing up, I was surrounded by boys who were always eager to prove their masculinity. Some ended up in fights, others in sports, others in parties, but almost all seemed to loathe one thing: Being gay. I studied in a school where being labeled a faggot was an attack on your masculinity, where coming out to your barkada meant possibly losing your best friend.
I was forced to go through this every single year, with a religion teacher that read us the same bible verse that said homosexuals were an abomination. I had to sit through teachers telling me that I was an abomination, that my love was a sin, that my feelings were a phase.
In my Grade 9 class, our religion teacher went as far as saying that being gay or lesbian is a mental disorder. My teachers never told me God hated me. In fact, they were very clear God loved all sinners. But I was still a sin that I couldn’t change. They never needed to tell me he did because, after all, he must. Regardless, I’m an abomination. I’m mentally-disordered.
I studied in a school where being anything but straight made you afraid of whether or not you were going to be allowed to stay. I heard the story of a girl in our sister school who had to transfer because she was caught making out with another girl on campus, stories of students who got kicked out because people found out they were gay. Some of them weren’t true. A lot of them were. But to us it didn’t matter because the only thing we knew to be true was that we were afraid.
This fear is one that many young LGBTQIA+ students share – the fear of being kicked out of school, the fear of being sneered at on the street for holding someone’s hand, the fear of losing friends, the fear of being disowned by their families, the fear of not getting a job.
https://www.rappler.com/move-ph/ispeak/239959-what-lgbt-kids-need-hear
Life without bullies? Why Senate must pass anti-discrimination bill
I make this appeal for the sake of science, for the sake of morality and for the sake of the nation’s well-being
The only objection my friends have against Senate Bill No.1271, which prohibits discrimination on the basis of sexual orientation, gender identity or expression or SOGIE is that the term is not understandable. So I will begin with the explanation that the term stands for sexual orientation, gender identity and expression.
I tried to help the proponents by thinking of a more understandable term, but I couldn’t. Only the term, “SOGIE”, adequately describes a range of personal traits and characteristics upon which we cannot, if we are to claim to be a compassionate society, discriminate against. This is why the bill also proposes the short name, “The Anti Discrimination Act”.
I shall cover first the term as to why our gender expression needs to be protected.
As an educator and a trainor of educators, I know that in the Philippines many kids are bullied because of their gender expression. In some studies, it is one of the top, if not the top reason, for bullying.
To those who oppose this bill who still have kids in school (even at the college level), you may wish to reconsider your opposition. It is almost certain that a significant percentage of the children of the oppositors are experiencing discrimination in their schools because of their gender expression.
Psychological scarring
My husband, my sons, my male friends of various ages, will attest that they all witnessed or experienced some form of bullying based on gender expression.
“Bakla” or “tomboy” are still derogatory terms for many. Anyone who, for some reason, no matter how trivial, is seen as not obeying the dress, speech, mannerisms, even the physical characteristics (such as height or body hair) of their assigned gender can be made the object of emotional and physical abuse. Bullying on the basis of some arbitrary characteristic such as the presence of facial hair clearly is a form of discrimination.
As for ignoring bullying, the psychological community is in agreement: bullying is psychological scarring, can lead to consequences that will affect the child into adulthood. Schools must take pro-active measures to stop bullying. This bill is an important measure to help us improve our educational standards.
By the same token, I would argue that those who oppose hazing and the resulting deaths, should also understand that early experiences of aggression, of being the bully and the bullied, are the building blocks of the hazing culture.
Given the standards of masculinity that underpin hazing culture, the link to early bullying on the basis of gender expression is clear.
I start from discrimination on the basis of gender expression because it is obvious that it is linked to a discrimination against sexual orientation.
However, to complete our discussion on gender expression it should be stated that sexual expression has very little to do with sexual orientation. My boys, because I raised them to be polite and gentle, received their share of being taunted as “bakla”, though all of them are now heterosexual men. Some of my lesbian friends are far more into femininity than me.
Sexual orientation
But the linking of gender expression to sexual orientation is necessary in the bill because the discrimination based on expression is derived from a discrimination based on sexual orientation.
Are lesbians, gay or bisexual people discriminated against? Definitely.
The shotgun aggression of bullies in school definitely subjects LGB kids to abuse just as badly, or perhaps worse, than those whose sexual expression is mistaken as indicative of a non-heterosexual orientation.
Even outside the school environment, however, there is proven documentation of discrimination that is based on sexual orientation. To those who want proof, and for the sake of brevity, I will recall that in 2010 the Supreme Court overturned a Comelec decision disallowing the registration of a political party list Ang Ladlad.
https://www.rappler.com/thought-leaders/208896-life-without-bullies-support-anti-discrimination-bill
SOGIE Bill 