ATENEO PEERS, in collaboration with Dollhouse and UP Babaylan, launched Pride Week: Apocalypse through a Pride March on December 1.
Pride Week is dedicated to raising awareness for issues relevant to the Ateneo lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, questioning and allied (LGBTQA) community, according to Pride Week Project Head Kazuki Yamada.
Attendees of the Pride March assembled at the Zen Garden and marched across the Loyola Heights campus.
The marchers prominently displayed a large rainbow flag while cheering slogans such as “Embrace gayness” and telling onlookers to “Have a gay day.”
In the launching of the Pride March, Dollhouse Queen Mother Nikki Riel encouraged members of the LGBTQA community to share their stories to their friends and families.
According to Yamada, “There is still a prevailing discrimination and marginalization of people with alternate sexualities, so we want to celebrate that and bring that to light.”
Yamada adds that the LGBTQA community does not need to be afraid of their sexuality. “They could just be who they are.”
The Ateneo Peers is an organization aimed at promoting psychological and emotional well-being in the Ateneo, while Dollhouse is a support group for Atenean students who are part of the LGBTQA community.
UP Babaylan, the official LGBTQA organization of the University of the Philippines-Diliman, was represented by Membership Committee Head Ron Delos Angeles.
The larger fight
For many participants, the event touches on a larger issue that remains to be resolved within the Ateneo community.
“They tolerate us, and accept us, but I think the only thing missing is for them to understand what we are really fighting for and what it means for us to fight for our own identities,” said senior Rica Salomon in a mix of English and Filipino.
She adds that the Ateneo is lacking in educating its students on matters of the LGBT community.
Salomon filed an online petition on September 4 to allow transgender students to appear as the gender they identify within the Ateneo yearbook; a resolution granting her request took effect on November 17.
Riel added to Salomon’s statement by saying that “the[LGBTQA] community in the Ateneo is not as united as people might think it is.”
Ateneo Peers Vice President for Human Resources and Training Gerard Lim said, “Even in the Ateneo, the ostracization [of the LGBT community] still happens. People still make gay and lesbian jokes as if it were nothing.
“[The Pride Week] is our way of saying that there are people who respect the LGBT community and we’re not going to stand for those things. We’re not going to take those things sitting down,” he said.
