#sogie

JUSTICE FOR EBENG MAYOR

For you bible bashers and bigots who are rlly not budging I'll make it simple

THE SOGIE BILL ≠ SAME SEX MARRIAGE

CAN Y'ALL READ???

WE DON'T EVEN HAVE A TEENY TINY PIECE OF OUR RIGHTS YET AND NOW Y'ALL ARE LOSING IT????? WELL DAGNABBIT WE'RE CONSIDERED AS ONE OF THE MOST LGBTQ+ FRIENDLY COUNTRIES AND WE DON'T HAVE LAWS THAT UPHOLD LGBTQ+ RIGHTS???

WE WANT LGBTQ+ RIGHTS

WE WANT TRANS RIGHTS

You know one thing I realized?

People won't take a stand with you unless you're claims stand with a bigger, more influential group.

How do I know this?

Well, we talked about the SOGIE Bill once, a bill derived from the Philippines and is still in the process of being established, it stands for Sexual Orientation, Gender Identity and Expression

I'm pretty sure you get the gist over here.

Our class was divided into two groups; one that stood up for the SOGIE Bill, and the other that didn't.

I was with the defendants. We were defending the SOGIE Bill. The talk transpired to about that one story where a transgender woman (MTF) managed to get a poor janitress kicked out due to a misunderstanding on each other's parts.

My fellow classmates began to feel overwhelmed, because they didn't know which side to take, because most of them believed it was wrong. They were being forced into a side they didn't understand, nor wanted to be on.

To say the least, I was hurt, because their way of thinking is basically implementing the fact that all they were saying were things they grew up hearing.

"We say what we're taught, we do as you teach" it was a poster on the wall of my classroom, it's words were left engraved in my head. A dull note, nothing but a sour taste in my mouth.

Sometimes, when you feel like you're the only one standing for your claim, you begin to question yourself, your way of thinking, especially when it's a battle of opinions between you and a huge group.

You begin to forget what you were fighting for, you begin to scramble away, to scuttle back to a hole you dug to hide yourself in, your fear clouding your ability to think. You begin to ponder if you're in the wrong here, their words begin to repeat themselves consistently in your head, like a lesson being taught to a child in order to implement that style of thinking.

What I felt during that moment was fear, hopelessness, anger, and exhaustion. All their claims were the same things I grew up hearing, they exhausted to me to no end, all the same opinions. There was one sentence that struck me though, one sentence I got angry at, but didn't talk back for.

"Christ created you for who you are, don't change that, what you have now is what you are"

How can words so uplifting suddenly become so emotionally draining? How could you use Christ's words against people when they're meant to bring people together?

Part 2

All that being said, for me, SOGIE is another platform to attack basically discrimination. I know that there are also a lot of laws against discrimination, but if this will open up another door to attack a newborn type of belittling, why not approve it? I think it is because most of the people are uneducted with the bill, and it is so sad that even our beloved lawmakers have a little understanding on it. Sotto, our Senate President, would even ask why there is a plus sign in the LGBT, if only he knows that our label is a long spectrum then he would probably understand. Sotto, a misogynist, would even say, it will downgrade the rights of women, if maybe he had done the same perspective on Pepsi Paloma, I would have believed him. But no, this isn't about disrespecting another right, this is about building another right. Again, this isn't just a battle on public restrooms, this is us speaking, we exist.

Love,

Apollo Alvarez,