The LGBTQIA+ community in the Municipality of Binangonan in the Rizal Province held a Pride parade in August, highlighting the need to observe Pride not just in the month of June, as inspired by the 1969 Stonewall Uprising led by LGBTQIA+ New Yorkers who have had enough of State-sponsored abuses.
According to Kian Villalba, president of PRIDE Binangonan, which organized the annual event, “LGBTQIA+ people are continuously fighting for some things. And so Pride should not just be observed in June.”
In a way, Binangonan is pro-LGBTQIA+ with an anti-discrimination ordinance prohibiting discrimination based on SOGIESC, as well as LGBTQIA+-centric efforts (e.g. every one of the 40 barangays has an LGBTQIA+ organization backed by the local government unit or LGU, which also has projects related to livelihood).
And yet there are still issues encountered by local LGBTQIA+ people, from discrimination “that can’t be avoided”, according to Villalba, to issues in the workplace and at home.
For Villalba, however, the local LGBTQIA+ community needs to be strengthened first because “if we don’t fix our issues within the LGBTQIA+ community, then how much more the issues outside it?”
All the same, for the LGBTQIA+ people in the Municipality of Binangonan, Pride is now a way to showcase LGBTQIA+ people’s existence, though also a tool to push for inclusion in development efforts. – WITH ALBERT TAN MAGALLANES, JR.
