The Wheel and Axle

Totally deserves her own series after last year’s sleeper hit.

“Coming Soon” can’t be soon enough.

Metro Manila Film Festival 2016: Some Spoilers!

Trans life is still largely misunderstood by most of society, especially Filipino society, which is ironic because our pre-Hispanic culture had very different views of gender roles. Unfortunately, colonization and Christianization suppressed our ancestral paradigms, leading to binary gender thought. Even with the increasing liberalization of LGBT politics in the last two decades, the “T” remains to be a constantly misunderstood segment of the community, with transwomen often mistakenly conflated with or confused for cisgender gay men who simply want to cross-dress.

While the topic of gender can take up entire books to thoroughly discuss, media has tried to bridge the gap – sometimes successfully (Transamerica, for example), sometimes not so much (countless awful examples I shan’t go into). Locally, there have even been fewer, and with some exceptions, representation has largely been relegated to funny (sometimes offensive) sidekicks.

(continue reading…)