Wishes and Fairytales By Leissandra Gonzales
I was four years old when I started believing in fairytales. Growing up, I am always reminded of the little girl who marvelled at every magical wonder that each tale brings. I remember flipping through the pages of my storybooks, deeply enthralled by the utopian-like world, filled to the brim with fairies and princesses. Every night– in blissful stupor, I would lay, yearning for my own happily ever-after and a charming prince to sweep me off my feet.
As time passed by, I noticed how there was not a single trace of dashing princes clad in armor. Instead, I was haunted with images of fair princesses and their beautiful eyes and melodious laughters. I could not pinpoint exactly when my daydreams were nothing but fantasies of me saving princesses from ferocious dragons and evil stepmothers. I would picture how I would pull them down for a kiss, sealing our love for eternity.
But everything felt so wrong.
With the bittersweet taste of tears lingering on the tip of my tongue, I asked myself how a girl like me can feel immense love for the same gender when all my life I have been taught that it should always be princess and prince, Barbie and Ken, woman and man? There is no room for people like me, and fairy tales will always be a painful reminder of that. I was fifteen years old when I stopped believing in fairy tales. Homophobia has long been normalized in the Philippines. It is a country where people spit out slurs and verbal abuse towards LGBTQ+ people with no remorse. A country where a heavy fist and a beating is what you get for straying away from the spectrum of what they deem as “normal”.
A pew survey shows that even with the majority of the Filipinos’ tolerance to the LGBTQ+ community– 65% of them deem homosexuality as immoral. This proves that even with the data gathered about the Philippines’ support on the LGBTQ+ community, most Filipinos are still clinging on to this deep-rooted prejudice against queer people.
People’s reaction towards Lesbians– a term for women who are sexually attracted to other women, are an example of Filipinos’ disapproval to the LGBTQ+. Not only are they frowned upon, but women in these relationships are constantly invalidated due to the toxic stereotypes that some still love to believe in. According to them, a relationship such as this one would never work due to the absence of a man. This ignorant reaction can be traced back from centuries worth of gender inequality in the Philippines. Filipina women are more often than not belittled and underestimated. Not only are we treated as a joke, but also treated like the sole purpose of our existence is to please men and nothing more.
The discrimination towards queer women is also visible on the tremendous amount of abuse and the hate crime that they endured. In a study called Violence Against Lesbian, Bisexual and Transgender women (LBT) in the Philippines, queer Filipino women relive all the emotional, physical, mental and emotional abuse they had to go through, with their own family as the source of violence. However, despite all of this, there is still a lack of response from the Philippine government that protects women that are part of the LGBTQ+ community. There are little to no laws that protect them from the prominent discrimination in the Philippines.
Because of this, many Filipino women are afraid to come to terms with their own sexual orientation. Not only do they have to struggle to gain respect in a country that invalidates women and their rights, but they also have to strive to gain a place of respect in a country that is severely homophobic. But, everyday I would hope and wait for the day to come where young girls like me would not have to alter themselves to society’s liking and lose sight of the freedom they once yearned for. The freedom to love who they want to love without the heavy weight of discrimination weighing them down and the freedom to be who they want to be.
The four year old girl in me who used to believe in the wonders of fairy tales still lingers near. She clings and tugs at the strings of my heart, urging me to never give up and never stop yearning. In the deepest part of my soul, I can feel her silently longing for the time where I too can have my own happily-ever-after.