Participatory approaches are needed in sexual and reproductive health and rights (SRHR) efforts to guarantee that the voices of those at the fringes of society – such as Deaf LGBTQIA+ people – are actually integrated in whatever programs are being developed or implemented.

Without this participation, emphasized Aaron Moises Bonete, co-executive director of Bahaghari Center for SOGIE Research, Education and Advocacy, Inc. (Bahaghari Center), “the risk of tokenism is high because there’d be a claim of being pro-minorities even when responses are actually impositions from outsiders.”

Bahaghari Center is currently rolling out “Saving hands” that eyes, as a first step, to tap Deaf LGBTQIA+ communities all over the country to: capture their lived experiences related to SRHR as an attempt for them to co-develop solutions to SRHR issues that befall them.

In Zamboanga City, Deaf LGBTQIA+ people stressed “the need to make sure grassroots voices are elevated,” said Mx Disney Aguila, co-executive director of Bahaghari Center. There is, of course, recognition that “we know of this already even if not too many seem to be listening anyway.”

Which is why, for Bahaghari Center, “those in power should go where the marginalized actually are,” Aguila added.

The discussions with Deaf LGBTQIA+ Filipinos were facilitated by Michael David dela Cruz Tan, MDC, founder of Bahaghari Center and editor in chief of Outrage Magazine, the only publication exclusively for the LGBTQIA+ community in the Philippines.

#SavingHands is supported by Mujer-LGBT Organization.