I Was Told Being Nonbinary Was Western. Philippine History Says Otherwise

This piece traces how precolonial traditions, colonial histories, and queer scholarship transformed my understanding of identity, and why reclaiming forgotten narratives is an act of resistance. 

Words Randolf Maala-Resueño
Art by Frances Angeles
June 30, 2026

Whenever someone calls me "Sir," "Kuya," or "Mr.," I rarely correct them. 

Most days, it is easier to let the moment pass than explain myself. They mean no harm, and I have learned to live with the quiet discomfort that follows. It is not a wound, exactly, but a small reminder that language often struggles to accommodate people who exist between categories.

As a nonbinary—or enby—journalist living in the Philippines, I have become accustomed to navigating that in-between space. 

There are days when I wonder whether I present as "too masculine" or "not masculine enough," and others when I question whether I am "too feminine" or "not feminine enough." 

The pressure to make myself legible to other people can be exhausting, especially when there remains no universally recognized way to look or act nonbinary.

What I have come to realize, however, is that much of that anxiety is shaped by inherited ideas about gender—ideas that many Filipinos have accepted as timeless but are, in fact, relatively recent.

For years, I encountered the familiar claim that identities such as mine were Western imports. The argument often appears in discussions surrounding LGBTQIA+ rights: that being nonbinary is a modern phenomenon, disconnected from Filipino culture and history. Yet the more I read, the more that assumption began to unravel.

Part of that journey began with a video by award-winning transwoman artist, actor, and writer Dax Carnay-Hanrahan, whose reflections on Filipino gender histories prompted me to look more closely at the narratives I had inherited. 

Her work encouraged me to ask a question that felt both personal and political: What if identities like mine were not departures from Filipino culture, but continuations of histories that had long been forgotten or erased?

In “Philippine Gay Culture” (1996), literary scholar J. Neil Garcia argues that precolonial societies in the archipelago possessed understandings of gender and sexuality that differed significantly from the rigid categories introduced during Spanish colonization. 

Garcia notes that concepts such as bakla cannot be neatly translated into Western labels because they emerged from local histories and cultural practices. His work remains foundational to understanding the Filipino queer experience, both within the country and across the diaspora.

These histories become even more apparent in discussions surrounding the babaylan, the spiritual leaders and healers who occupied important positions in many precolonial communities.

While many babaylan were women, historical accounts also describe male-bodied individuals who assumed feminine roles and identities. Their social authority did not depend on strict adherence to binary gender categories. In many cases, their ability to move beyond those boundaries was understood as a source of spiritual power.

Reading these histories changed the way I understood myself. And ultimately, that distinction matters to me. I have spent enough time being translated by other people to know how easily nuance disappears when someone else decides what you are supposed to mean.

Maria Lugones, in her influential essay "The Coloniality of Gender" (2016), argues that colonialism imposed not only political and economic systems but also new frameworks for understanding gender.

European colonial powers exported binary notions of masculinity and femininity alongside Christianity and patriarchal social structures. What many societies today regard as natural or traditional, Lugones suggests, may itself be a colonial inheritance.

This perspective complicates a common narrative in the Philippines. 

If colonialism introduced rigid binaries, then the claim that nonbinary identities are "foreign" becomes difficult to sustain. In some ways, it may be the opposite: the insistence on only two legitimate genders is itself part of a colonial legacy. 

To dismiss gender-diverse identities as alien is tantamount to overlooking the ways colonialism reshaped our understanding of ourselves–where gender rules often feel moral, even sacred. Reading Lugones made me realize how much of that certainty is historical, not just an inevitability.That colonial pressure felt rampant in classrooms, churches, and family gatherings, where gender is often treated as something fixed, even when my own life has never felt that simple.

Judith Butler's “Gender Trouble” (1990) further expanded my understanding of identity. Butler's argument that gender is not an innate essence but something continuously produced through social practices challenged my assumptions about authenticity.

At first, that idea felt unsettling. Then it felt freeing. For someone who often worries about presenting correctly, Butler's work offered an unexpected sense of relief. There is no singular way to be nonbinary because there has never been a singular way to perform gender–Butler just reminded me that the rules were never as natural as they seemed.

Other scholars, including anthropologist Michael Tan and cultural theorist Martin Manalansan IV, have similarly emphasized that Filipino queer identities emerge from the intersections of indigenous traditions, colonial histories, religion, migration, globalization, and diaspora. 

Identity, in this sense, is neither fixed nor anachronistic. It is constantly negotiated. Their work also reminds us that the Filipino queer experience cannot be reduced to a single narrative, even within increasingly queer-centric spaces.

This understanding has reshaped the way I approach my own experiences. I still use they/them pronouns. I still experience moments of discomfort when addressed in ways that do not reflect how I see myself. But I have stopped treating those experiences as evidence that I am somehow failing at being nonbinary.

There is no single way to embody this identity.

Self-recognition comes first.

Societal acceptance follows, if it comes at all.

Perhaps that is what Pride Month ultimately asks of us. Not simply to celebrate visibility but to remember. To remember that queer and gender-diverse Filipinos have always existed, even if history has often obscured them. 

Reclaiming these stories is not an attempt to import new identities into Filipino culture. Rather, it is an effort to recover narratives that have long been part of it.

That act of remembering, I think, is a magnanimous one. It asks us to extend grace to ourselves and to others, to acknowledge the complexities of identity, and, as generations of queer people have reminded one another, to simply "love yourself."

As I continue telling stories about art, culture, and social change, I find comfort in that realization. I am not standing outside Filipino history.

I have been part of it all along.