In a push to – particularly – highlight minority sectors within the already minority LGBTQIA community, Bahaghari Center for SOGIE Research, Education and Advocacy, Inc. (Bahaghari Center) named Ms Disney Aguila and Mx Aaron Moises C. Bonete as its new co-directors that will steer the organization to better the services given to minority sectors in the Philippines.

Disney is a Deaf transgender women, who started getting involved in the LGBTQIA community in the Philippines as a member of the Deaf Pink Club in 2010. When the organization evolved to Deaf Rainbow Philippines, and then Pinoy Deaf Rainbow, Disney held its top post until 2022. She is the concurrent head of TransDeaf Philippines.

From the very start of her joining LGBTQIA advocacy and activism, Disney said her “push has always been to mainstream minority voices in the LGBTQIA community, particularly those traversing various identities – e.g. transgender, PWD and, yes, LGBTQIA,” she said.

Disney’s expertise includes giving SOGIE 101 and HIV 101 lectures to Deaf LGBTQIA and ally communities; and Filipino Sign Language (FSL) lessons that eye to “make our Deaf culture – with the help of promoting our language – better understood.” She is also certified in community-based HIV screening, and has become a go-to person for Deaf people who want to get tested, or are in need of help re HIV.

“The LGBT community inspires me because of its constant push for equal rights for all,” Disney said. “It is our community that highlights the need to value a person for who he/she/they truly is/are.”

For their part, Mx Aaron started engaging in the LGBTQIA advocacy in college, when – after noting the absence of LGBTQIA inclusion in Lucena City – they established EU Bahaghari in Enverga University. The goal, they said then, was always to elevate the issues of those at the fringes of society, particularly those who continue to be minorities even if they already belonged to minority groups – i.e. in this case, young LGBTQIA people who live outside metropolitan parts of the Philippines. Identifying as a non-binary, Aaron eventually helped organize other LGBTQIA community-based organizations in other parts of Luzon, continuing to believe that “it is when we work together that we are strongest.”

Aaron’s other fields of expertise include: journalism and photojournalism, working as the Managing Editor of Outrage Magazine; graphics and lay-out; and PR and marketing. They have similarly been developing modules and giving lectures on SOGIESC 101 and HIV 101.

“Inclusion,” said Aaron, “should always be the goal.”