I was wandering around Intramuros with my friends when I passed by a vintage store. I got curious with the old lamps and trinkets and I have found myself looking at all the items for sale. On the right side of the store was a cabinet full of random things that probably don't go together in one place but one thing caught my attention -- the naked Barbies.
"You can dress me" the paper on their feet says. And immediately I was reminded of my childhood growing up as a little gay boy from the province. Unlike now, where you are pressured to act a certain way, or dress a certain style to be accepted by the very community that you belong, my childhood in one of the most quiet towns in Antique -- unless a teenage girl gets pregnant -- was fun and blissful in its own way.
I lived most of my childhood days, in a town where there was only one entry and exit for all public vehicles and that meant travelling outside our only starts at 5AM and the last trip is at 1PM. Any trips you plan to make beyond those times would be impossible unless you booked your own tricycle, jeep or shuttle. As a small town with a population of approximately 4000 people, public recreational areas like the town plaza turns off its light by 9PM, small stores called tiangges close at 7PM the latest and your parents are probably calling you to go home for dinner at 6PM.
When you know you're gay at a young age, you are most likely to effeminate because masculine gays were never a concept to anyone. I grew up playing with my sister's dolls. Yes, I do have toys that were gender specific for boys like cars and whatnot but I enjoyed more dressing the Barbies. I also had girls for friends ever since I can remember. Yes I was classmates to boys that I gotten to be close with but they were never my go-to friends.
Every weekend, we would go to the river to play on the bridge or go onto the stream and through stones at the water. It would be like any other children playing with nature but it's even more fun when you're with your girl friends shrieking and laughing together and no fear of the possibilities of ending the day with punching each other -- pulling each other's hair is more of a probability.
As a gay boy, I was pressured to be the best in all things may it be in my academics or in non-academic activities and I dare say I was one of the best. But for the most part, to be one of the top performing students in school was more of a choice because it meant you walking up to the stage and claim that award. It's like your screen time or air time where everyone is lauding you for a year's worth of hard work. When exams come, you study alone in your bedroom covered with all your notebooks from all of your eight subjects. But when you miss taking notes from one topic, it's best when you're friends with the girls because you can run to them for a copy of their notes.
But living in the small town and growing up gay meant hearing side comments from bystanders calling you names. Was it normal? For them yes. For me, I don't care because that's all that they have against me. Others would tell my dad or mom that I am gay and they wouldn't mind or make a big deal out of it because they know I perform well in school compared to that person's basketball-playing, straight son.
But despite all this, living in the small town of Valderrama was fun until you grow up and your dreams become bigger than what the town could give. And that meant going to college outside the province, graduate and fly to the metro to work and find who I really am.
Compared to my young gay boy friends, living in Manila with the influence of social media, I have had built up insecurities because of what the gays in the metro likes and wants from a partner. The pressures of the gays in Metro Manila is way high you some gays have to drastically change their way of life. Gays like me who are effeminate and loud are immediately referred to as "baklang kanal". A phrase so foul (IMO) we are automatically placed at the lower echelon of the gay community.
No matter what pressures the gay community in this city may put on us to be accepted and be loved, I would always have that young gay boy from the small town in Antique with me.
After peering at the five naked Barbies in the cabinet in that vintage store in Intramuros, I wanted to pick them up and dress them up. And the little gay boy is alive again.
