Miss Athena Charanne Presto1
1University Of The Philippines Diliman, Quezon City, Philippines
This is an exploratory study of poor LGBT youth in a rural area in the Philippines. This addresses the gap in knowledge since the bulk of the literature on the Filipino LGBT community focuses on the urban setting, especially in Metro Manila (Hart & Hart 1990), and with adults as respondents. Through in-depth interviewing, this paper pays attention to experiences of rural poor LGBT youth which is shaped by their disadvantaged position in terms of gender, class, age, and rural-urban location. Using intersectionality as a framework, this paper engenders unique interpretations of the LGBT identity and the rights claim it limits given mutually-reinforcing vectors of oppression. Finally, this paper asserts that in studying the lives of LGBT, it is crucial to recognize the many vectors that play on their lived experience and understand how the interaction of these vectors open up and close down access to the enjoyment of their rights, especially in the context of the current populist administration.
Keywords: bakla, intersectionality, rights claim, LGBT, rural youth
Biography:
Athena Charanne “Ash” R. Presto is an instructor and a Masteral student at the Sociology Department of the University of the Philippines, Diliman. She graduated summa cum laude at the same institution in 2016 and has since built a research interest in the sociology of inequalities, sociology of justice, and sociology of human rights.