The recent arrest of Awra Briguela sheds light on the in-group bias within the queer community, and the double standards they’ve been subjected to

Exactly before the end of Pride Month, queer actor and celebrity Awra Briguela was arrested by the Makati police because of a brawl that erupted in a Poblacion bar. Charged with physical injuries, alarm, scandal, resisting arrest, and disobedience to a person in authority, Awra was detained for a few days before they finally released her on bail the first day of July. The rumors that circulated on social media from her friends said that she was simply defending another friend from sexual harassment. 

This allegation – of Awra being punished for standing up for a friend and against sexual aggression – infuriated the queer community, with LGBT+ personalities, groups, and allies rushing to Awra’s side. Bahaghari issued a strongly-worded statement against the Makati police: 

“Malinaw na halimbawa ng transphobia at police brutality ang marahas na pagdukot kay Awra, na inaresto matapos tumindig para sa kaibigan niyang hinaharass…Mariing kinukundena ng Bahaghari ang nangyari kay Awra Briguela at kanyang mga kaibigan, mula sa harassment hanggang sa brutal na pag-aresto kay Awra.” 

Metro Manila Pride likewise affirmed their support for Awra, while Senator Risa Hontiveros called it as a case of narrow-sightedness and injustice. 

What doused more fuel to the community’s rage was Raffy Tulfo’s interview with Makati chief of police Edward Cutiyog, who claimed that the reason for Awra’s aggression was that was lusting after the other party, Mark Christian Ravana. On its own, this was already a disgusting and queerphobic insinuation; the fact that the person saying it is the head of a police force that has been notoriously transphobic makes it even more unnerving (in 2020, they launched an operation called “Oplan X-Men”, which profiled trans women in the guise of saving them from exploitation and sex trafficking.)

The case is far from closed. While noise around the incident is slowly dying, there are still a lot of things that remain unresolved, such as: Did the sexual harassment happen, without a doubt? Is there a CCTV video, same as the one where Awra and her friends were teasing Mark inside the bar? 

Why didn’t Awra’s friends file a complaint against Mark? People online speculated that Awra’s friends were afraid of challenging the police through legal means. The counterpoint to this is: then why take the issue out on social media? 

I don’t think we’ll have the answers until more evidence is submitted. And that is why we need to pause and respond to a question that bothers queer and non-queer folk alike: 

Did the queer community react too quickly to this? 

One could argue that more proof should’ve been gathered before damning anyone. To some, this may look like the perfect example of the insidiousness of mob mentality and irrationality of cancel culture: quick to fill in the gaps, quick to anger, and quick to destroy who they deem as the avatars of social injustice. 

Perhaps it will also reinforce a lot of the stereotypes cishet people already have of queers: that we’re histrionic, that we’re unreasonable, and that our blind loyalty to our community means we’re all too willing to withhold disbelief. 

We must carefully consider our reaction to this accusation in the pursuit of justice, not just for Awra, but for the queer community and the larger society too. I will be the first to admit that I was part of the people who reacted to the news, siding with Awra and framing it in the context of our fight against the patriarchy. 

But I would like to highlight justice as the motivation for why the community has reacted the way we did. 

The thing is, even if it was true that Awra’s friends had lied and it was Awra that was at fault, there is a danger of judging the whole queer community for swooping into Awra’s defense. 

The queer community has been historically a disadvantaged minority. We are a group that doesn’t benefit from the equal protection of the law. Our government not only denies us our rights, it even uses our lives (and deaths) as bargaining chips. 

How can we as a community truly fathom what justice is and can be, when justice has been denied us for so long, as the anti-discrimination bill continues to rot for more than twenty years, awaiting passage?  

There are two lessons that we clearly see in the community’s reaction: 

Yes, the community banding together and closing ranks in defense of one of us reveals that we also are human, in the sense that we have a bias for our in-group. 

But also, it is because society has chosen to exclude us so much that we see these individual acts of aggression as symptoms of a larger, systemic problem. 

We’ve learned to defend ourselves, because no one else will do it for us. Not the government, and not even our so-called allies.

As we have recently seen with the incident involving drag queen Pura Luka Vega, whose religious-themed drag performance people found too blasphemous, many of our so-called queer allies are so quick to withdraw their alliance with the whole queer community when one of us fail to live up to their standards of propriety and decorum (that are also often anti-queer.)

Perhaps, before cishet people judge our distrust of the system, maybe it’s time they take a long, hard look in the mirror and ask why they’re so quick to deny our humanity and threaten us with their privilege and power when we question their beloved, oppressive institutions.

Is the condition of cishet alliance that we acquiesce to the very same system that oppresses us? 

Do you only like us when we’re your meek clowns? 

Do you hate that we’re both not laughing now?