As more and more men learn to listen to the struggles of their LGBTQIA+ siblings, new ways of allyship come to light

These days, weddings have come to define class reunions.

The gentle rustling of palm leaves and lapping of low-tide waves. The sea breezes gently sweep the humidity away, making sure an otherwise sunny, hot afternoon doesn’t reach a stifling, skin-clinging heat index. Another such class reunion is happening here, in idyllic Panglao Island, Bohol.

The Polaroid photobooth is understandably full, thanks in part to the wedding being a destination one—for many guests, it’s both their first and last (in a long while) time here as neither the bride nor the groom hail from this locale.

Gotta make the most out of it, even if I haven’t used a photobooth in a long time. It feels like I’m back in college, seems to be the unspoken buzz among the twenty- and thirtysomethings lined up here, all as 2010s EDM thumps in the background.

For many heterosexual men, the change started when we stopped looking at the differences of queer peers and instead built on what we had in common, starting with the “shallow” stuff, shared hobbies and interests, then moving on to advocacies, work struggles, aspirations, politics

Another couple steps into the booth. They take many photos. Looking at their eyes immortalized on the photo paper, one might almost think that this is the couple whose wedding everyone’s celebrating. They’re two men. The line has many guys and their girlfriends, but the guys cheer the all-male couple on as their girlfriends clap. Another group of late 20s, early 30s men, whose rapport gives a whiff of high school barkada, cheers loudest, roaring as though their team scored the game-winning hoop.

It’s their bro and his boyfriend. And in a country still fighting for its SOGIE bill (see also: civil rights including property and medical rights), waiting longer in line in a photobooth is nothing compared to the couple waiting, like many before them, many now aged or dying, for the same civil rights their heterosexual peers take from granted. Like breathing. The right to breathe. The right to be.

The world we left

The world I entered as a college freshman was vastly different from the one I left just four years prior as a high school freshman. To use the terminology my politically-ignorant brain used back then, the world of college was: more gay, more feminine, less manly, quite sinful.

It was the early 2010s, #MeToo was half a decade away, print and TV were more powerful media, and the internet was a place you actually logged out of. I came from a Catholic all-boys’ school, and with it came a certain set of assumptions of how the world worked and what a “real, godly man” should strive for.

I was raised for “a man’s world,” but the world I entered after graduation was no longer that. We had to share spaces with people who for most of our childhoods, we learned to bully, to ostracize, and to measure ourselves up against if we wanted to be “real” men.

Suffice to say, the person I was as a graduate was very different from the person who entered college as a freshman.

There is a unique Catholic guilt that straight men from my generation, millennials who came of age in the 2010s, have to confront: The guilt of having been privileged at the expense of The Other, and the guilt of having participated, purposely or otherwise, in the process of othering.

Since that time, I and many of my peers have gone on “gender journeys,” from experiences as simple as deciding that the cut of women’s polos suited them better to a full-on “gay awakening.” Those of us who discovered that cis-heteronormativity was their true identity eventually stopped making a big deal out of it (and conversely, bashing those who weren’t like us): Oh! Look at me, a manly man!

There’s a subtle detail that keeps “Sex Education: impactful, relevant, and timeless, all while being a blueprint for future ways of being: The matter-of-fact friendship between the show’s two main protagonists, a straight and gay boy

We were privileged to have experienced the more “feminine” progressive culture of early 2010s college campuses, a process which was bumpy at first, with much unlearning. Friendships were lost along the way, and some of the boys, rather than change, became further entrenched in what now has a term: toxic masculinity.

By the time our reunions started, many of the gay peers we bullied were out and about, were themselves, truly, fully. No formal apologies happened in group settings, though I suspect they happened in one-on-one conversations.

The sea change started gradually: Hey guys, can I bring my boyfriend along to video game night? Sure, as long as he doesn’t let our team lose! Slowly. I’m bringing litson baka, my boyfriend’s bringing a bottle of brandy! Surely. Hey, Jerry? Where’s Christian? Oh, he’s sick, flu season things. What’s his address? Let’s send him some noodles and dim sum.

I think for many of us heterosexual men, the change started when we stopped looking at the differences of queer peers and instead built on what we had in common, starting with the “shallow” stuff, shared hobbies and interests, then moving on to advocacies, work struggles, aspirations, politics.

And so here we stood on that sunny afternoon in Panglao, Bohol, celebrating the wedding of man-and-wife, but with half the class bringing their boyfriends along, all of us hoping that love would win, for everyone.

Just another Tuesday

“Sex Education” is not just a critically acclaimed TV show. It’s a popular one, and rightfully so. It discusses problems without being preachy. It humanizes the awkward and fumbling nature of young (and yes, even older) sexuality through humor and sympathy. More than good entertainment, it’s a balm for many unlearning the guilt often associated with embracing sexuality.

But there’s a subtle detail that keeps the series impactful, relevant, and timeless, all while being a blueprint for future ways of being: The matter-of-fact friendship between the show’s two main protagonists, a straight and gay boy.

It’s like any close friendship between boys attending the same class for a long time: standing up to bullies, shared hobbies, after-school adventures, familiarity with each other’s parents, and solving problems together (including attracting respective crushes).

There’s no hint whatsoever that the gay boy is any different from his straight friend in the latter’s eyes. No awkwardness, just trust. No virtue signaling: You’re not my friend because you’re gay, but rather, you’re my friend. Period.

Many older men are shocked when I share how my all-male barkada is “half gay.” Really? They don’t try to molest you? Isn’t it awkward dressing up around them after a ball game? What? You all slept in the same room? I can only smile at the nth time these questions are raised.

Perhaps this is one of the best representations of queer people: As nothing special.

After all, isn’t this the end goal of struggle and activism? That being a queer body in the world is so normal, so matter-of-fact, such a fact-of-life that it neither raises eyebrows nor requires a civil rights movement?

After all, isn’t this the end goal of struggle and activism? That being a queer body in the world is so normal, so matter-of-fact, such a fact-of-life that it neither raises eyebrows nor requires a civil rights movement? It’s just another Tuesday, and I’m a guy listing my husband as one of my medical dependents.

As the saying in many circles goes: “We’re still so far from the goal, yet we’ve come so far.” We do have a blueprint for the future, and the present as well, for what allyship can be: to let others take up space just as they are.

But I’m getting ahead of myself. Before we can even dream of “nothing special,” the same old fish have yet to fry: bigotry, willful ignorance, political manipulation, the works.

At least we’ve got a fire burning. We’re still so far from the goal, yet we’ve come so far.