Wait! What’s this? FF RH Advocacy Director Kenneth Keng and FF President Red Tani sharing a tender kiss? After all those months of putting up a front, claiming -4 on the Kinsey Scale and trying very hard not to pat each others’ asses, they’re ending up in a Public Display of Affection? How could this be? What environment could have led them to shed their fears and just admit to their raw, pulsing brahmance?

Answer: The 29 Steps for LGBT Human Rights festival, which was held last July 2 at the Quezon Memorial Circle’s People’s Hall. Presented by the Lesbian Activism Project (LeAP!) and the Embassy of the Kingdom of the Netherlands, the event aimed to promote awareness of the Yogyakarta Principles—a set of principles on the application of international human rights laws on sexual orientation and gender identity issues.

There were film showings, musical performances, and several booths manned by pro-LGBT organizations, the Freethinkers included.

There was international human rights group Amnesty International Philippines, which recently voiced its support for the RH Bill…

…the AIDS Society of the Philippines…

…STRAP, the fabulous Society of Transexual Women of the Philippines, and many other groups out to advocate gender equality and a prejudice-free society.

FF wanted a particularly interactive booth, and came up with the “Come Out for a Kiss or a Kiss” concept.

The idea was fairly simple: come out of a literal closet as absolutely anything you desire–gay, lesbian, straight, transgender, Belieber, atheist, hipster, human–and after being cheered on and getting your picture taken with your Coming Out Certificate, you have the choice between a chocolate kiss, or a kiss from one of the Freethinkers.

For instance, cheery Ging and Chris came out as Trans-Men…

…and got to kiss FF’s LGBT Advocacy Director Beatriz Torre!

Transgender beauty Magdalena came out as a Gender Non-Conformist…

…and got to kiss Kenneth. (As it turned out, Kenneth was a particularly popular choice, and would receive quite a few more kisses as the day went on.)

There were several participants who came out in pairs, like lovely lesbian couple Jam and Joey…

…bewitching singer Tao Aves and her partner AK, who came out as Mrs. Tao…

…and super-sexy sisters James and Angel from STRAP, who came out as Transexual Dyosas.

It was also great to have many participants from Deaf Rainbow Philippines (DRP), such as DRP’s President Bibo, who came out as a Beauty Queen…

…and Cutz, who came out as an Adventurer.

Suffice it to say that lot of people got very creative with their certificates. Aldrin, for instance, came out as a Freesexual.

While JM came out as Fabulous, Teng went for specificity and came out as an Ali-Top-Top!

Cy came out as a Bear Lover (as opposed to, say, an Otter or Twink Lover)…

…while Reighben came out as a Bottom Lover! The booth, it seemed, served an excellent secondary purpose as a Want Ad.

Not to be outdone, Pepe came out as a Delicious Treat to the crowd’s libidinous screeching.

Jack was very particular about his spelling of “Duqueza.”

UP Psych Prof Eric did away with the lengthy psych jargon and came out as a Gay Nerd.

Lia came out as a Gold-Star Lezzie, which she explained was a lesbian who has never had sex with a man. You learn something new everyday!

Jeiel came out as a Hipstersexual, which we can only assume entails obscure sexual acts in underground bunkers to the strains of a shoegaze band.

Babs came out as Human. ‘Nuff said.

Taking a break from sucking face with strangers, Kenneth came out as a Token Christian.

Sexy Lexi from all-girl rock group General Luna went for simplicity and came out as Bi-Sexual…

…as opposed to Ena Terol, the event’s official photographer, who went by the name Optimus Prime and came out as a Lezbatron.

The event’s co-host and singer Maegan Aguilar professed to being Bilingual in Sex…

…while Elmo fetishist MJ came out as Queer.

However, there was one particular “out-ing,” so to speak, that led these boys to show their unbridled enthusiasm. What, pray tell, could have made these boys so motherfreaking happy?

This, of course!

STRAP Founder Sass and her friend Santy came out as Lipstick Lesbians…and how! If that’s not coming out, I don’t know what is.

The moment was such fun, in fact, that Santy decided to go for a second round. This time she came out as a Nudist and, well, we don’t blame her.

All those sexy silhouettes aside, both the 29 Steps for LGBT Human Rights festival and our Coming Out booth were a definite success. It was very awesome to see everyone taking great pride in who they were, blind to their differences and working together for a Philippines free of bigotry. It was a great way to spend a Saturday.

I’ll leave you now with a chance photograph of the G-mik Barkada circa 2011. The Pajero in the background was paid for legally.

Did you come out of our booth and have your picture taken? Check out our FB photo album for your special shot! 

(Thanks to Garrick Bercero for the photos!)

I haven’t been to the past hearings and technical working groups for the anti-discrimination bill. All I know of them is that Rep. Abante (dist 6, Manila) and other conservatives told horrible, horrible lies and stereotypes about us gays. The usual stuff. These mean prudes claim that we’re intrinsically evil, and thus immoral, dangerous to children, destructive to families, yada yada yada. And that passing the bill would only empower us to destroy society itself! Of course they’re dead wrong. We are not intrinsically evil. They are just hateful, irrational, and mean people who are afraid of liberal change and the different.

Back then, this guy Abante was super strong and managed to shoot down the bill. Now, he still is, but not too strong to block its passing to the working group stage. I attended the very last of these working groups, sessions dedicated to deliberating what to change, add or remove from the draft anti-discrimination bill. This one went relatively calm, with brief but infuriating interludes from the resident Filipino and foreign catholic bigots. Previous ones were much more animated because Abante was there to be the loud and uber angry conservative congressman.

Last week’s enemies of liberty was the effeminate, maybe closet gay attorney from the CBCP and that white Republican spokesperson from ALFI—a person whom I think should be deported along with other foreign agents of bigoted beliefs. The police and the military reps were not enemies of liberty during the session. Sure, they were a bit homophobic, espoused a don’t ask, don’t tell-ish policy, but at least they overtly showed willingness to work on passing the bill with minimal changes. Very much unlike the bigots who were only there to make sure the bill gets severely weakened.

The guy from the CBCP said things becoming of an attorney for Catholic Bishops. Homosexuality is something internal, he says. But when someone acts on it, society will frown on it because of “conscientious objection”. That phrase right there can be restated as “objection based on religious grounds”. Opting to use the word conscientious makes it seem that their religious morality is the one true morality, thus making their decisions super right and everyone else wrong. From that belief, the Catholic Church thinks it has the right to be against this bill, code for “No way are we gonna let this pass! Cuz you know, we have faith that God hates gay sex”.

The gentle attorney also retardedly suggested that people and institutions be exempt from the punitive aspects of the bill if the discriminatory acts they did were committed in obeisance to religious beliefs. In obeisance to my beliefs, I rebutted that asinine statement saying that adding such clause to the bill would defeat the purpose of the bill itself. I made it very clear–like some bigshot, in front of that attorney, amidst the reps during the session itself–that the clause would enable people to circumvent justice, even after discriminating gays, as long as they say they did it out of their religion. That little performance earned me praise from none other than Risa herself. *clapping to myself, thankyoubow*

White American bigot, like many Republicans back in the US, was acti’n way evils. He said that passing the bill will: endanger children (because we’re more likely to be pedophiles – WTF!), promote public sex (this guy is insane) and criminalize human relations a. k a. being a practicing bigot. He said these f’d up things with such conviction that even the military and the police joined Risa, Jonas and me in taking this guy down a peg. Long story short, white bigot was a total loser in this session, even the police and military guys think he’s absurd.

I am of a disposition to assassinate guys like white bigot and Abante, because frankly, the world would be much better without them. But I shouldn’t. Because if I do pull it off, it might put gays in a worse light and muddle efforts for gay equality. Anyway, us libs came off that session as victors. It is a wonderful sign that the military and the police are cooperative in the further formulation of the bill. I just hope that they remain that way all throughout the process of passing it. Abante et al can be defeated as long as us libs gain stronger mass support. It’s because guys like him operate on the assumption that gays and their supporters are of such a small number that they can be pushed around. We libs, through more appeals to the masses, just have to prove him wrong. Or maybe we could just challenge them to a series of public debates and pwn their asses.