BLNC Facets: Ron Roxas

BLNC Facets : Pride in Everyday

Ron Roxas

LAGUNA

What is everyday life like as a queer person on your side of the country?

CC: I’m Ron Roxas, a 23-year-old BS Clothing Technology student and fashion designer from UP Diliman. Growing up queer in the province of Laguna, my safe space lies only in our house, particularly in my room playing dolls with my sisters. This safe space shrunk smaller as I faced homophobia beyond the four corners of our home, when I was teased using “bakla” as some sort of insult by my classmates.  Afraid to be labelled differently, I was forced to conform — “masc”-ing my femininity and keeping my true identity to myself. This gradually changed when I became surrounded by people who made me feel embraced for who I am, like my supportive family and The Haus, a fashion organization I joined in my senior high school.

Personally, the university, having a progressive image, serves as a safe space for queer people in contrast to the harsh realities of homophobia and bigotry more commonly faced in the larger society. This enables me to be comfortable to live my truth and freely express my flamboyant self. This further emancipated me in reclaiming my identity I almost once lost. In result, this space also allowed me to foster and enrich my creativity freely through my fashion designs — serving as a healing medium to relive my childhood queerness of playing dress-ups.

What would you like Filipinos to know about the LGBTQIA+ community where you are?

Firstly, I want people to realize how troubling it is for me to find my safe space miles away from the province where I grew up. I know how times are already changing, especially whenever I go home and I observe lesser glares when they see me wearing skirts and heels as I commute. On the other hand, I do recognize that being able to study in such prestigious university is a privilege and so is having this safe bubble for me as a queer person. I’m lucky, most queer people I know don't have their classrooms as a safeguard from discrimination. Some have it worse where their institutions enable and are perpetrators of hate crime. But we have to understand that such safe space is still a bubble, very much vulnerable, especially when it comes to stepping outside of it and facing the glaring reality we live in. It is necessary for us to expand such safe spaces for queer people everywhere in our country. It is our right to feel like we don’t have to worry about how we dress, act, talk, and how our environment will respond to it. The dangers of homophobia and transphobia is real — trans people are being killed; HIV is being stigmatized and weaponized against queer people; and the list goes on.

That’s why we must continue to fight for the passing of the SOGIE Equality Bill, because somewhere out there a young queer person needs this protection — a reminder that the society is capable of loving everyone.

https://www.instagram.com/rnrxs/

Photographer: Wilmark Jolindon  (https://www.instagram.com/thewilmark/)