To inform LGBTQIA community members of a town in northern Mindanao about SOGIESC basics, the local rainbow organization there – named LGBTQIA Community of Binuangan, Misamis Oriental – is hosting a four-part workshop.

Discrimination of LGBTQIA people continues to be reported in these parts of the Philippines, said Jacob Salvana, founding president of the LGBTQIA Community of Binuangan, Misamis Oriental. Meaning – arguably – this is “one of the most difficult issues (we continue to) face here.”

Based on the reports reaching them, there are LGBTQIA people there who get discriminated based on their gender expression (e.g. some of them are catcalled), while others are deprived of employment opportunities because of their gender identity.

Sadly, Salvana said, “the lack of LGBTQIA empowerment programs are apparent”, meaning “we are left to our own devices to confront hate.”

The SOGIESC workshops are intended to empower the local LGBTQIA community members by localizing still-largely Westernized SOGIESC (and LGBTQIA) concepts, thereby “making them self-assured when discussing this issue,” Salvana said. Hopefully, “they will be empowered to confidently face society (even through a small effort like this).”

Added Stephen Christian Quilacio of Outrage Magazine and Bahaghari Center for SOGIESC Research, Education and Advocacy, Inc. (Bahaghari Center), there is acknowledgment that LGBTQIA communities outside metropolitan areas are often neglected in mainstream discourses. “And yet – to be honest – not many activities are being developed to actually include them, thereby empowering them to raise issues very specific to them/their contexts.”

For Quilacio, therefore, “such projects that eye to – to start – inform the LGBTQIA people about basic concepts affecting them; and then inform them what they can do when facing issues thrown at them because of their SOGIESC are truly empowering.”