By Rex Catubig

 

NOTE: This article pays tribute to the lives of those hardy individuals who dared to break out of the mold in a cruel and uncertain time, and face an unwelcoming world. The Pride Month of June seeks to review that world, to overcome the gay stereotype, put a human face in its stead, and to recognize the LGBTQ as a vibrant part of the prism of humanity.

“Bakla! Bakla!”, they would taunt him as he walked down the street. It hurt and pained him, but he learned to take it all in stride.

Onofre had always known and felt different and had accepted himself as in variance with his biological gender. In time, he dropped all pretenses, dropped his persona as Onofre and reborn himself as Cleoti.

Despite his orientation, Cleoti actually took the usual path to a normal life. Regardless of the challenges that confronted her, she finished college with an Education degree from a local University. After graduation she taught at the Bonuan High School extension of the university–now defunct. Always finding ways to keep body and soul together, currently, she teaches reading and writing to children at his village Baptist Church.

While you can tame your personality, the heart can remain untamed. Cleoti at 75 has had her share of relationships. But at 75, she did not only win a gay pageant hands down. (The secret is your answer to the Q and A, she boasts).  But she also won her “inamorato”, her number seven who became her “forever”.

She recounts that at a gay beauty pageant, this guy came up to her and told her in no uncertain terms he is smitten. He is 43, but love, or what passes for it, knows no math. They have lived together for three years now.  And she proudly claims that the man of her life, works to earn his living, and does not depend on dole outs.

Cleoti’s bff, Vanessa, could not be more different. A home-service beautician and Arthur in her previous incarnation, she fusses just about everything. She is 65 but retains the vanity of a much younger woman. At the program she was a participant of, she complained to us that the costumes of her fellow contestants were all wrong. “This is mardi gras” she pointed out, showing off her orange taffeta gown gaily decorated with feathers and flowers, as she thrust her bosom out and flipped her layered blond tresses.

Her being only a high school graduate does not stop her from being a confident vivacious woman. Yet she has had her share of romantic waterloo in her doomed relationship with a 20-year old drug addict. She sighed that she tolerated him in the name of love. But soon enough, she gathered her wits and gained enough emotional strength to cut him loose from her life.

These two gay pioneers have weathered, overcome and outgrown the harsh realities of their life choice. The taunting of “Bakla! Bakla!” no longer intimidates them. On the contrary. It has empowered them to face a life filled with discrimination, with aplomb, dignity and courage.

Labels do not define them, they just highlight their uniqueness and specialness.

In the vicious game of life, they have caught the curve balls and have thrown them back to score a homerun.

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