Growing Up
Coming Out in a Traditional World
Like many other girls I began with the belief that my sexuality was predetermined
Growing up is a confusing time. You find yourself in a constant battle against yourself, your friends, your family, your hormones, your beliefs… it’s no wonder that parents worry about the teen years.
Of course, it’s no different in any other part of the world, but in the Philippines — the Southeast Asian country where I was born and raised — the topic of marriage was brought up to young girls as early as elementary school.
According to a 2021 UNICEF report, the Philippines has one of the highest rates of young marriages in Southeast Asia. Approximately 15% of Filipino girls are married before the age of 18. UNICEF
Improper posture and habits were corrected using the infamous line: “You won’t find a husband that way!”
Even more notorious would be: “For a girl like you to be (acting) like that.” (Of course, these phrases — having been translated — don’t quite have the same ring as they do in the mother tongue, but you’re going to have to trust me on this.)
It was a matter of course that a girl had to find a husband, and perhaps even more alarmingly, change herself in order to attract one. So when, in the eighth grade, I first found myself faced with the idea that I liked girls not boys, it was an adjustment in itself.
I began with the belief that my sexuality was predetermined.
No one in the school ever mentioned liking girls.
It was, at that time, an incredibly strict Catholic school. We weren’t allowed makeup or earrings. Our uniform skirts were way past the knee. In such a place, even I don’t know how such a realization could bloom, but it bloomed anyway. People often whispered, but a gay girl was hardly the worst thing in the world.
I was lucky, in many ways. I knew girls who shared the same feelings — who understood the matter of sexuality even when I didn’t.
I used up my phone data looking up what it meant. I asked other girls — the classmates who would indulge me — what it felt like for them. Was it a fluke, I wondered, and how could I even be sure?
Even though I was confused, when I came out, my parents had very little to say about it. Acceptance was as easy as an, “okay, whatever you want.”
A comfort, really. To tell the truth, I was lucky, in many ways.
I find that it’s a common theme with me. Not a lot of girls my age would have had the same opportunities. I know girls who would likely never come out to their parents but were, of course, loud about it in the ways that they could handle.
I know girls who are frightened of introducing their significant others — or even holding their hands in public — for fear of the news somehow returning to their families.
And, I know girls who braved through it, supported by family and friends, but still finding disparagement on the other side.
I suppose that even while the world gets better, there will always be people who think badly of those whose sexualities aren’t the norm.
A friend’s mother had despaired once she heard news of her daughter’s sexuality. “I don’t know what I’d do,” she said, “if I heard of you being made fun of by other people. What would they say? What would I do?”
I understand that reaction, too. Of wanting to protect your daughter from all the judgment, from a world who does not think she’s normal. But to ruminate and to grieve over a person’s fate… what use would it do? Even if at first you mean to protect your daughter, it will not feel like that to them. After all, what does she care about the opinion of the world? If she told you, she only cares about yours.
Despite it all, I don’t think any of us regret coming out, no matter how difficult it might be. It’s a testament of our bravery and courage — of how much we’ve done and will continue doing, so that hopefully all girls like us can express who they love without fear… wherever we live in the world.
