WOMAN ON A MISSION: Ilongga brings trans kids’ rights to pageant stage

By Joseph B.A. Marzan

“I joined the pageant not as a pageant queen, but as an activist who hungers for a platform, and I think it is essential for us activists, advocates alike, to maximize all the platforms we can get, even when we’re nervous, even when we can’t find words.”

For 19-year-old Ilongga transwoman Albiean Revalde, winning the title of the first-ever Miss Trans Global Philippines was not just about the sash, the crown, and the bragging rights, but to shed light on the plight of transgendered people and oppressed sectors in society.

Revalde, a native of San Dionisio, Iloilo, bested 24 other candidates from across the country during the pageant which was held virtually last June 6, 2021.

She was initially hesitant to join the pageant because of her hectic academic schedule, juggling between getting a Lean Six Sigma certification, and continuing to pursue her degree in Industrial Engineering at the Polytechnic University of the Philippines (PUP) in Manila.

The contests she won while at PUP include PUP’s Next Top Model and the Face of PUP, in addition to her leadership activities being the Vice Chairperson of the PUP’s Sandigan ng Mag-aaral para sa Sambayanan (SAMASA) and main convenor of United PUP, a system-wide alliance of the university.

Revalde told Daily Guardian that the support of people around her ultimately pushed her to join the pageant, despite the limited time window to prepare for the pageant.

“I was hesitant to join the pageant, because two weeks prior to that, I continuously slept late for a certification program for my degree. But I’ve received a lot of messages from my PUPian friends because they really are rooting for my advocacies to be raised on such platform on a national level. More than anything, it is the community’s support that has motivated me to join this pageant and the advocacies. I guess that is also a great foundation to join the competition, because you get to be reminded of the purpose more than anything else,” Revalde said in an online interview.

She also shared that from the announcement of candidates on May 30 to the pageant night proper on June 6, she was not able to sleep well due to constant preparation along with academic and financial struggles.

Being cash-strapped due to her expenses in academics and Hormone Replacement Therapy (HRT), Revalde made efforts to look for help from organizations she was involved with.

Because of this, she was able to secure photography free of charge, with the photographers even pitching in for her transport, as well as other sponsors who were willing to shoulder her other needs in the competition.

Speaking about the help she got, she quoted Miss Universe 2018 Catriona Gray, that she “stood there not just as herself”, noting the sense of community in her swift preparation for the national pageant as her strength.

“That is an aspect that I bring in me, to always remember that no matter how capable we are individually, we must consider that if we are queens, if we are student leaders, if we are raising an advocacy, we must also remember that we are greater together, and that is only when and only through that can we genuinely carry our calls, when we go as a community, when we go altogether. That’s why I asked for help. Communication and community were great aspects which helped me, and I believed that was my strength in the competition,” she said.

Revalde also expressed being able to incorporate Ilonggo tones in her speaking while growing up, and in her pageant spiels, including what she called the “courageous” tone of northern Iloilo and the “caring” tone of southern Iloilo and Iloilo City.

She spent two years in her junior high school at West Visayas State University (WVSU) in La Paz district, where she learned to live in a boarding house alone early on, something she says she was able to bring in Manila.

“I think those two aspects combined, that is a really great aspect that I have brought in the competition as well, as I have brought courage even though there is fear with raising such sensitive issues, not just concerning the trans community, but the nation as well, as I tackle patriarchy and macho-feudalism. Also, the creativity, the ability to think out of the box, it is something that I bring as an Ilongga to the competition,” she said.

A day leading into the pageant, Revalde shared how she alleviated her nervousness by remembering her cause as her main source of inspiration.

“I remembered that I was there for the advocacy more than anything else. If I think about winning, if I think about the glory of winning, I will really get nervous, because that’s a pretty shallow reason for me to join the competition. But I was there for my advocacy, I was there to represent a specific aspect of transgenderness and bring the whole community with me as well. So from there, I just thought, win or lose, if I am genuine with the advocacy I raise on that day, and if I focus and I stay to my purpose why I joined there, I will feel like a winner already because I was able to relay,” she said.

PERSONAL STRUGGLES

Revalde also shared her personal struggles as a transwoman, from her years growing up, including the discrimination she faced almost causing her to miss out on an important day of her life.

In her process of discovering herself as a woman, she described that she “had to work double or triple as hard” compared to her cisgender peers.

The limited knowledge that she and the people in her community in Iloilo have had about transpeople while she was growing up also made her question herself.

She first came out as queer, then as non-binary while she was growing up, but said she was more comfortable being addressed as a woman.

“It is not like, one day I woke up that I felt like a woman. It’s not linear as well. I remember even since I was young, I never felt comfortable with the company of boys. I never understood how a boy’s mind works. I never related to them, and I always felt like a girl when I was young, but I could not say it at that moment because of the pressures society has put on me and on the trans community. We didn’t have the concept of trans women before. We only viewed trans women as gay, and thus it has been harder for me to understand why I am. But then I realized later on, especially when I’ve had encounters with my love interests, that I feel much more comfortable when I am addressed as a woman,” she shared.

Revalde also described her process of growing up as “painful”, but also came to see a lighter side of herself when she saw her parents supporting her, citing her father being present when she was named PUP’s Next Top Model.

She also cited American actor Billy Porter about making it big, saying that “it’s easier to be who you are when you are is famous”, recognizing the privilege of having a standing in society, citing also her wins at school and in the recent pageant.

“In discovering my truth, as I always say, it is a painful process for me and my family. I don’t care what the other people say, I just think about my family, and yeah it really is a painful process because I came out twice, actually thrice, queer, non-binary, and then transwoman. But I guess the privilege that comes along winning helps me to ease that situation, or sort of protect me or alleviate the situation for them to accept me easier,” she expressed.

During the pageant, the first thing that came to mind for her was her experience in Senior High School, where she and other trans kids almost were not allowed to graduate due to their hairstyles.

After the pageant, she has been working with the PUP student regent and administrators as part of her ‘Trans Now, Trans Tomorrow’ campaign.

“Our papers were held back, and we were being power-tripped and repressed for our expression and gender identities. Many of us were shaking during that time. We were holding our hands together, us trans kids because we didn’t have sort of a protective figure, so we had to raise a campaign on our own. Although it wasn’t won 100 percent, I told them that I would come back, especially those generations who will come after me. How can I materialize these campaigns? I don’t want to be another queen who just used those campaigns, those likes to win and after winning, will not materialize. I am not a pageant queen when I joined this competition, I am an activist who longs for a platform to be heard,” she said.

Revalde said she does not want her struggles growing up as a transwoman to be called a “motivation”, saying that the continuously pervading notion of many people about transgender persons have forced the entire Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Transgender, Queer and plus (LGBTQ+) to be political.

She mentioned the Stonewall riots of June 1969 in New York City, which gave rise to the modern-day LGBTQ+ protests and the annual celebration of “Pride Month” in many countries every June.

She added that her continuous learning as an activist also helped her to understand the struggles of other sectors of society, something which she says she brought to the national pageant stage.

“I don’t have the privilege to say that I want to be apolitical. I don’t have the privilege to focus on other things than the advocacy or segregate myself or isolate myself from the politics, because I am affected directly. But as I have also grown then, I grew to realize that our fight is not isolated to the LGBTQ+ or trans plight. We also have to find denomination with our other sectors of our society, because only through uniting with other sectors and finding who our real enemy is, can we truly advance, she said.

Revalde also directly addressed parents of LGBTQ+ children, telling them to support their children in the discovery of their natural selves.

“It’s really a painful process, but we have to see our denomination, both kids and parents have to compromise a part of their biases to understand one another so they can find a certain denomination, and that denomination always ends with love. The reason why you put your child in this world in the first place, and a lot of parents are wanting their kids to change, to conform to the cis hetero binary system, because they love their children, is because they don’t want them to get hurt in a society that oppresses LGBTQ+ individuals, but I want you to remember that your children are natural. Their identities are natural, have existed long ago and will continue to exist. They can’t change that, and they don’t have to change that. But our society is not [natural]. It is man-made, thus it can be changed by humans like yourself, and if you truly love your child, then you should help your children win the very system, the society that puts them in these conditions that you fear them to be into,” she said.

TRANS WOMEN IN BEAUTY PAGEANTS

Revalde also addressed the controversial question of whether transgender women should be allowed to compete in beauty pageants which were traditionally held to allow only cisgender women.

She said she agreed with it as transwomen should be allowed presence “in all spaces” in society, to erase the “patriarchal, macho-feudalist, and capitalist” standards of who women are and who they should be.

She cited the Miss Universe 2018 pageant, where Angela Ponce of Spain became the first transgender representative to the decades-old contest.

“When we look at it, pageants are now becoming a platform to amplify the plight and the advocacies of women, and transgender women having that intersectionality with women in general, they have a special aspect to bring to the table in the plight of women in general. As I have said, our very existence is a revolution, it shakes the foundation of patriarchy, which is also the very oppressive system that chains women up to this day. What defines womanhood, I believe, is our capability to raise a point in the table of discourse against that shared oppression of us. Trans and cis women coming together is a great power to be reckoned with by such oppressive systems,” Revalde said.

As to pageants exclusive to trans people, she said that they were only “temporary” since they were not yet totally allowed to join other beauty pageants for women.

“We have to recognize that we are not yet included in a bigger scope to join pageants which are traditionally exclusive for cisgender women. We create these platforms because we don’t have a platform yet, so we need this at the moment to raise. We cannot just cry at cis pageants without a platform for us, and this is a great platform for us to show the different facets and different members of the spectrum of the transgender community. As you can see at MTG PH, we have shown how beautiful different members of the spectrum are, some coming from teachers, moms, trans moms, and me as a student, we are all different. I think that is one thing I learned, the beauty of the spectrum of transgenderedness,” she said.

GEARING UP

Revalde said her causes are central to her candidacy in the international Miss Trans Global pageant, will still be central to her whether or not she wins the title, and will still be central to her life as an activist.

“Whether it’s on mainstream media, on stage, or on the streets, or in whatever platform that we may think of, what matters is the purpose that we raise, and as a transwoman who has seen how essential us tapping into intersectionality to win our plight, and also considering not just our generation, but for those who came before us and those who will come after us.

She opened that she wants to “stay true to her Ilongga roots”, having recently been in touch with local designers from Iloilo and Manila, local government units (LGUs) in the city and province of Iloilo, and community leaders, to help her in the upcoming pageant.

She also cited her observations as a pageant fan, where she said those who have held beauty pageant titles “lose themselves” to the commands of handlers and keeping themselves at a distance from the masses, adding that she hopes to not fall into a similar fate and “make people realize their voice”.

“I see a lot of beauty queens who say that they want to be the voice of the voiceless but I just want to remind them, that as a lot are rooting for me, and are saying flattering things, I want them to remember that I am not here to iconize myself, and I am not here to be a voice of the voiceless. I want them to realize of their voices. It may just be short, it may just be small or disregarded, but they do have a voice, they are not voiceless. Together, even through these small voices, we can create a loud noise that will bang the ears of our oppressors,” she said.

Revalde will aim to succeed fellow Filipina, Miss Trans Global 2020 Mela Habijan of Marikina City, at the Miss Trans Global 2021, which will also be held digitally later this year.