Gender swinging

Girls who are boys

Who like boys to be girls

Who do boys like they’re girls

Who do girls like they’re boys.

—From the pop song “Girls and Boys”

MY YOUNG interior designer friend, Gigi, whom I used to visit for some small business, shared her pad with Leli, a writer, with whom she had a relationship going. One day I saw Leli’s desk and lamp and luggage out on the driveway. They had apparently called it quits.

I didn’t see Gigi for a while until one day she appeared on my doorstep. She announced brightly that she was leaving for London. She would be away for six months. “My boyfriend’s gotten a fellowship which includes a flat,” she said. “I will stay with him.” I did a double take.

“Your boyfriend??” I asked incredulously. “What happened to the girl?” “Oh,” Gigi answered airly, “That’s past tense.”

A week later, another young friend, Sharon, dropped by with her 21-year-old friend, Jam. “Teka muna, let’s get this clear. Ikaw ba, Jam, gel o boy?” “Naku, girl na girl po. I have no history. But I’m open…”

Arrgghh! What did that mean! I was getting really confused. Sharon promised to round up a few friends and take them to my house to enlighten me. (I do not know if Sharon’s friends are typical of the whole spectrum. They are mostly affiliated with the arts).

Things I would never have known if I just stuck to other old fogeys like me unfolded through the soup, and the chicken, and the salad, and the dessert. I am sharing the following interview with my readers on this condition: Please do not shoot the messenger. And please do not have a heart attack.

May I choose?

“When I was about four years old some older children asked me if I was a boy or a girl. I couldn’t answer because I really didn’t know. They tied me to a tree and wouldn’t let me go. I just cried and cried. My parents reared me as a girl but I grew up tall, bulky, very athletic and I was always into sports. You can be born with a female organ but you feel you’re not. I think at a certain age one must be able to choose.

“Gender is not a given. We just cling too much to the idea that it defines one’s sexuality. It’s just a body part.”

***

“Actually everything is exploratory. When I am asked, what sex are you? I can only answer, ‘I’m female today. In the future I’ll still have to see.’ Maybe I enjoy guys now because I have a boyfriend. But it could be that I just haven’t met a girl I can truly like. If I do, I’ll shift for sure. You never know. Some find out when they’re already married and have kids, that’s when they shift. And that’s really, really bad.”

***

“I’ve had several relationships with women—and men. When making love, I find women softer, gentler, men are very rough—maybe they’ve watched a lot of porn.

My friend, who had a series of relationships only with women, worked for a while in Singapore. She surprised us by coming home married to a Dane.

I asked her why she married. She said that in a woman-to-woman relationship, the power shifts, sometimes one is the boss, sometimes it’s the other. But men are programmed to believe only they can be the strong ones. Then I met this man who is not at all controlling, and is, in fact, very gentle and understanding. What woman wouldn’t want a man like that?”

A girl thing

“I never had a serious relationship with another girl but I’ve experimented. Once I almost fell in love with a girl. That’s when I realized it could really happen to me.

“I liked her. We were hanging out all the time. On a rare occasion there was—suddenly—a connection! If you’re ready you cross the line.

“She said, Do you really like me? She looked terribly serious. I said, Of course I love you! She said, Then let’s—! I was flustered. I said, Okay, I love you and all, BUT—. I totally chickened out. Nothing happened.

***

“We were living in Paco then. Luckily, our neighbor who left for abroad was letting us use their beautiful garden. It had old trees, a pond and plants lighted underneath.

“My friend B and I were jumping on a trampoline for an hour. When we were tired we lay down on the grass, laughing exhausted. It was twilight and it began to drizzle. It was always my fantasy to make love in the rain. But I never dreamed it would be with another girl! All that atmosphere was stimulating us. She said, ‘Kiss me!’ And I said, ‘Okay.’ We lolled around on the grass and made out. It was so cool.

“Of course kinikilig ako with the act of kissing. But it is different from being in love with and kissing your own boyfriend. I realized I really preferred a dick. B still likes girls and has one. For now.

Gay love

“There are many girls who’ve fallen in love with a gay when he sounds ambiguous. He seems undecided because he gives vague responses like, I’m not in any relationship [with a guy] right now and I’m opening my doors. Or, Next time siguro, let’s see…

“Of course a girl can fall in love with a gay! When you’re making love you don’t care anymore whether he’s gay or bi-sexual or whatever. The borders are blurred—it’s beyond gender. You just want to experience the person, It’s the expression of you that’s not stereotypical, not the fixed box of male or female.”

***

“These days males seem to be reconnecting to their hearts and women to their power. Viola! the she-male and the lady boy. Wouldn’t that create a balance? But the older generation has a hard time relating to males who are soft and feminine even if, in reality, they’re straight.

“Actually right now I’m so tired of making all the decisions, of working so hard. I need to rest. I want to be taken care of.”

Rave

“That phase in the early ’90s were the Rave days. Rave was drugs and experimenting with sex, it was music and dressing crazy like it was Halloween but in a very fashionista way. Like I had friends who were into Hello Kitty and they were Hello Kitty all over.

“It was like that street in Tokyo where you dress up in your personality. I was always in a long gown wearing a tiara. Others were into corporate with necktie and all. Or comic characters.

“The happenings were in abandoned warehouses, ice factories and once a big truck was hired. There were even foam parties, and you could have, like, a big bubble bath in a huge bathtub.

“The organizers would fly in DJs from abroad. Certain drugs could elicit specific highs, that’s why they’re called designer drugs. The acid for music made you feel as if the music were liquid and seeping through your skin. Ecstasy (P1,000 a pop) made you touchy-feely. You wanted to touch everybody and everybody was welcome to touch you. Everyone was just so happy and loved everybody.”

***

“Today’s IT generation gets so bombarded with images and information. They’re immune to magazines and TV and internet and billboard flaunting near nudity and sex with all genders. My DJ friend says when he plays the song ‘I Kissed a Girl and I Liked It,’ the girls really go wild! They love it. They think kissing a girl is so cool.

“There’s something impersonal about the way intimacy is seen by the kids nowadays. It’s wala lang. They feel it cannot destroy them. No really deep feelings unlike before. If you’re hurt or lonely there’s always the Internet and the games to distract you. In Japan they’ve even created a program where you can have a relationship with a virtual girl. And the simulation is so human that you can really fall in love with her. In fact one guy fell in love and did get married to his virtual girlfriend. It was shown on History Channel.

“So why would anyone prefer a programmed character to a real living girl? Because it’s easier to handle, no complications. You can always change the program kung sobrang busted ka na. In Japan, especially, where there are so many things happening, people get easily bored. You can even change your look and create your private ideal world.

“In the cyberworld, gender is not important. You can pass yourself off as a girl or a boy it doesn’t really matter. In a sex chat a voice is trained to sound like a sexy girl when it actually belongs to a male. But because the image on the screen is that of a girl, the viewer, usually some old man, even if he suspects, doesn’t really care. He gets all orgasmic.

“And so many people have met on the Internet and gotten married! Locally, as someone said, “Marami ng nabuntis dahil sa cell phone na ’yan!”

***

“He’s actually a fluke in my life because I always only liked girls. We’ve been together for 12 years. But when I asked him if I could take into the relationship a younger girl who was a good friend to both of us, he agreed. She lived with us in the same house.

“But in less than a year she left. My boyfriend and I were heartbroken because both of us had fallen deeply in love with the girl. We are still trying to get over it. We are still hurting badly.”

***

There were so many sexual repressions some generations ago. Everything was bawal this, bawal that. Girls couldn’t date without a chaperone. It was even taboo for them to kiss on the cheek any but the oldest men. Women got married and had children. Maybe they dreamed of something more exciting, like an extracurricular Prince Charming, but few had the guts to carry it out.

The freedom the old generation could only fantasize about, the later hippie generation embodied. Make love, not war. Peace and lots of heterosexual activity. The next battle was for the acceptance of homosexuals. The gays have largely won it but the lesbians maybe are still hanging in there.

***

Today’s gender swinging, the kids say, is “still under the radar.” If some mothers are more tolerant, it could be because they were the hippies of the ’60s. It’s a continuum. Each generation just brings its fight as far as it can go.

Repression leads to rebellion and rebellion to evolution, and the cycle goes on, everything just repeats. Today nobody wants to be defined. Boundaries are blurring. What Lyvia foresees is that the emerging lifestyle will morph to an even more extreme form. But in 30 or 40 or 50 years, the cycle will return to what oldsters can recognize as its beginning. The kids, after all, have expressed a longing for stability, for “someone to watch over me.” And that may be the conservative, controlling, authoritarian figure of yesteryears, the macho that their grandmothers warned them about.

With heartfelt thanks to my informants—Jam, Mimi, Bianca, Corinne, Darryl, Elaine, Sharon and Mitch (mostly 21-29 years old), who were frank, big-hearted and never superficial. Their full identities shall remain undisclosed to protect their mothers. Thank you also, Ms Lyvia Martinez, for your valuable insights.

And thank you to the universe for what we are today, what we will become and whatever the next evolution will be. –Gilda Cordero-Fernando, Philippine Daily Inquirer