The 2nd Boy Abunda Roundtable Conversations (BARC) was held some weeks ago at Nanka Restaurant in Quezon City with the timely topic, LGBTQIA: Sino Ba Tayo? This coincided with the celebration of Pride Month held every June each year.
A personal initiative of Boy Abunda, BARC is a roundtable discussion among resource speakers and invited participants. Lively discussion and exchange of ideas are encouraged. BARC hopes that conversations will open minds, expand perspectives, and explore new ideas among the participants.
Boy explained in his opening remarks for the second edition of BARC, “We are fighting for equality and against discrimination. We are fighting for marriage equality. What is LGBTQIA? How can we effectively fight against homophobia and bigotry if we do not know who we are? If we cannot articulate who we are?”
The resource speaker was UP Diliman Assistant Professor Bea Torre who completed the 2nd International LGBT Psychology Summer Institute at the University of Michigan Department of Psychology in 2010. She is the coordinator of the Psychological Association of the Philippines LGBT Special Interest Group composed of psychologists and allied mental health professionals who engages in research, education, advocacy towards the promotion of LGBT rights and well-being.
BARC was attended by students from various universities and LGBTQIA advocates who actively participated in the discussion.
Sexual Orientation, Gender Identity and Gender Expression (SOGIE) were discussed during the event.
This website defines the following: Sexual Orientation is the romantic, emotional, or sexual attraction or non-attraction of a person to another human being. Gender Identity is a deep sense of self – being a trans, woman, man, or other identity – which may or may not match the sex and gender a person is assigned at birth. Gender Expression means how an individual expresses oneself through a person’s name, pronoun use, style of dressing, haircut, behavior, or voice modulation, among other manifestations.
Meanwhile, CHR explains the meanings of each term in LGBTQIA. A Lesbian (L) is a woman who is attracted romantically, sexually, and/or emotionally to women. A Gay (G) has a sexual, romantic, or emotional attraction toward people of the same gender. It can specifically refer to a gay man. A Bisexual (B) is an individual who can be romantically, sexually, and/or emotionally attracted toward two or more genders. A Transgender (T) is a person whose gender identity and/or expression are different from what are conventionally associated with their birth sex.
A Queer (Q) is defined as a person who is beyond the range of the controlling gender and sexuality narrative. An Intersex (I) individual has characteristics such as sexual, physical, strictly genetic, or some combination that would be classified as both a male and a female. An Asexual (A) is anyone who feels little or no sexual attraction to others as well as lack of interest regarding sexual relationships and behavior. Asexual is different from celibacy because it is a human trait while celibacy is a choice to abstain from engaging in any sexual activity.
The main coordinators of BARC are Ms. Bemz Benedito and Mr. Ruffy Hirang.