Bahaghari Rainbow

My Filipino-American Experiences with LGBT Friends & Culture

June 28, 2017 25 min Episode 11

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Back After a Break & Some New Toys!

Welcome back to the Sherwin M Podcast! I’m Sherwin. It’s been a few weeks since the last episode – work projects have kept me super busy (hoping to deploy a big one in July!). But I found some time to record, so here we go with Episode 11!

Quick updates: I picked up a couple of new gadgets recently!

12.9” iPad Pro (2017): Got the new model with the Apple Pencil after seeing the WWDC demo. I’m hoping to use it for sketching out ideas in my web design/development workflow. So far, so good!
DJI Spark Drone: My friend Jeff (from JB Tech) “encouraged” me (haha), and I grabbed one. It’s incredibly fun and much easier to fly than the cheap drones I’ve tried before. Just starting to play with it.

I wrote a bit more about these on my blog if you’re interested: sherwinm.com.

Episode Focus: Bahaghari (Rainbow) & Pride Month

Today’s episode is called Bahaghari, which is Tagalog for Rainbow. I’m recording this in late June 2017, which is Pride Month, celebrating the LGBT community.

(Disclaimer: This episode isn’t about condemning or persuading anyone regarding LGBT issues. I just want to share some personal experiences and stories related to the community from my perspective as a Filipino American, hoping to foster understanding. If this topic isn’t for you, feel free to skip this episode.)

Understanding Pride Month & The Rainbow Flag

I got curious about the origins:

Why June? According to Wikipedia, June was chosen for Pride Month to commemorate the Stonewall Riots, which happened at the end of June 1969 and were a major turning point in the fight for LGBT rights.
The Rainbow Flag: Designed by artist and activist Gilbert Baker in 1978. His original flag had 8 stripes, each with a specific meaning: Hot Pink: Sex
Red: Life
Orange: Healing
Yellow: Sunlight
Green: Nature
Turquoise: Magic/Art
Indigo: Serenity
Violet: Spirit (Modern flags typically have 6 stripes, but it’s cool to know the original symbolism!)

My Filipino American Experiences with LGBT Friends & Culture

Growing up Catholic, I’m aware of the traditional religious views on homosexuality. However, I was fortunate to be raised without prejudice and always approached differences as learning opportunities. Here are some memories:

My Earliest Memory (The Sports Game): Around age 5 in Manila, my uncles had me watch a sports game (basketball or volleyball?) on TV. They were cracking up laughing. Looking back, I think the players were all gay men, and my uncles found their movements humorous or stereotypically “feminine.” I didn’t understand it then, but it was perhaps my first exposure.
Family Story: My Cousin Kuya Jong: One of the first people I knew personally who was gay is my cousin, maybe 10 years older than me. He hid it for a long time because, especially back then in the Philippines, being gay faced strong disapproval due to cultural and religious beliefs. I heard sad stories about his father (my uncle) being ashamed and trying to “beat the gay out of him.” Despite this, my cousin was always a kind, responsible, caring person, especially to his siblings. While some older relatives disapproved, my generation of cousins accepted him. Someone once yelled “Bakla” (Tagalog for gay, potentially derogatory) at him on the street, and the story goes my cousin chased him down and beat him up! Even though everyone knows him as “Jinky” now, I still call him “Kuya Jong” out of respect – he’ll always be my older cousin first. We still hang out and party when I visit. His story always makes me question the hate some people direct towards the community.
A Social Observation from My Single Days: Quick tip from my past: Gay men often have gorgeous female friends! Hanging out with my gay friends back in the day was always a blast – great people, fun times, and yes, often surrounded by beautiful women!
The Infamous Pre-Wedding Haircut Story: Right before marrying Abby, I met her cousin “Wat” in the Philippines. Needing a haircut, he insisted on taking me to his guy. He gave me a sly look and said something like, “Just roll with it.” We go in, and the barber is clearly gay. No big deal. But as he’s cutting my hair, he starts getting very flirty – massaging my shoulders, squeezing my arms, complimenting my physique. I look over at Wat, who’s just grinning. The barber’s hands start wandering lower… down my chest… Then, as he finishes, he playfully grabs my crotch area and declares the haircut is “on the house”! I just burst out laughing, totally caught off guard. Wat and his friends were cracking up too. It was such a bizarre, funny experience – reminded me of comedic scenes in Filipino movies! I wasn’t offended; it was all in good fun, though definitely memorable!

Reflecting on Acceptance and Discrimination

It’s disheartening to hear about discriminatory bills targeting the LGBT community (mentioned happening in some US states around the time of recording). Having known and loved gay friends and family, it just doesn’t make sense to me. To anyone facing discrimination, please keep your heads up.

Filipino Slang & Terms for LGBT Folks

Language reflects culture, and Tagalog has various terms, some neutral, some slangy, some potentially offensive depending on usage:

Bahaghari: Rainbow
Bakla: Gay (can sometimes be used derogatorily, like ’[ __ ]’)
Becky: Common slang often used interchangeably with Bakla.
Tibo / Tomboy: Lesbian (I suspect Tibo derives from Tomboy).
Bading: Another term sometimes used for gay men (Google says ‘fairy’?).
Malande: Flirty, flamboyant (can apply to anyone, but sometimes used in this context).

Final Thoughts for Pride Month

Just wanted to share some personal stories and perspectives during Pride Month. Everyone deserves respect and the right to be themselves.

Transcript

Welcome to the Sherwin M Podcast, a podcast about the adventures of being Filipino-American. I am your host, Sherwin. It’s been quite a few weeks since my last recording, but I’m back again. Just been very busy with a few projects at work. So I’m supposed to be finishing one of them up this week, so hopefully I can deploy the application to production in July.

So I found a little bit of time to do a little recording. So here we go. Just wanted to do a few updates before we begin. Picked up a couple of toys these past couple of weeks. First toy I picked up was the 12.9-inch iPod.

The iPad Pro, the second generation, the 2017. So, so far it’s been pretty cool. I haven’t really been interested in iPad Pros, but after seeing the demo in WWDC, I was interested. So got the Apple Pencil, been doodling around, and probably going to be using it for assistance in like web design. I’m not really a big designer, but I like to sketch things out.

I like to use it for programming certain things, so we’ll see how that works in my workflow. And the other thing, I just picked up the DJI Spark drone. So shout out to Jeff from JB Tech. He quote-unquote encouraged me to get one, because he got one. And pretty good pickup.

So far, it’s been fun and easy to fly. I’ve had other drones, but like really inexpensive ones. Like cheapy ones, like under a hundred bucks and it’s, it’s not the same. It’s a huge difference than, you know, getting a DJI or, or other drones in that, um, you know, category or, um, yeah, that type. But yeah, I, I just got it a few days ago and I’ve barely started flying it, um, but it’s been fun.

So if you guys, uh, are interested. I did a couple of blog posts at blog.sherwinem.com. If you want to check that out.

Um, so that’s, that’s really about it, uh, on the updates. Um, so this is going to be episode 11. It’s, uh, Bahag Hari. Uh, so Bahag Hari is Tagalog for rainbow. I, I least, I hope it is.

I looked it up. Um, and so the reason why I wanted to title it rainbow, um, it’s. Late June, 2017, as I’m recording this and, um, it’s pride month. So for those who, um, don’t know what pride month is, it’s a celebration in the LGBT community. And when I first heard about LGBT, there was actually a queue, uh, in it.

So it’s LGBTQ, uh, a few years ago. I’m not really sure why they took it out. Uh, maybe it just didn’t sound right. I don’t know. But anyway, LGBT is, um, pretty much, I think it’s like lesbian, gays, bisexual, and trans, trans, transsexual.

So I wanted to do an episode, uh, about this. And this episode isn’t really meant to condemn or support, um, or try to persuade people towards one side or the other. Um. Um, I just wanted to share, uh, my experiences regarding the LGBT community. Um, and it’s nothing bad.

Um, hopefully, um, some of you will get entertained by it and it’s not meant to offend, but again, just me sharing, uh, some stories. Um, so if you don’t really care too much about LGBT, then you’re more than welcome to shut off the episode, but, uh, I, I wanted to share, um, some stories that. I, I, I’ve been through, um, so, but first I wanted to get some insight behind, um, some of the things that, uh, I guess crossed my mind. Um, so like, for instance, why is pride month, uh, in June? So I looked up good old Wikipedia.

So according to Wikipedia, the month of June was chosen for LGBT pride month to commemorate the Stonewall riots, which occurred. At the end of June, 1969, as a result, many pride events are held during this month to recognize the impact LGBT people have had in the world. That’s interesting. I, I didn’t know that. So, and then I also was curious about, um, the, the rainbow symbol, right.

That represents, um, LGBT, although I was always curious cause there’s some, um, places that I’ve seen or drove by. Um, that have the rainbow flag or I would see bumper stickers, um, you know, and, and I know it has something to do with LGBT. I just wanted to find out what was the origins about it. So looked it up on Wikipedia once again. And so I guess it, um, was like a design by Gilbert Baker in 1978.

He is a, um, openly gay activist. And originally there was. What was it like seven or eight colors, uh, eight Stripe versions designed by Gilbert Baker in 1978. Um, but now I think there’s more two, three, four. Oh no, there is eight.

Nevermind. So there’s eight and here are the colors from top to bottom and they actually have meaning for each color. So hot pink, uh, stands or represents sex. Red represents life. Orange.

Orange represents healing. Yellow represents sunlight. Green represents nature. Turquoise represents magic slash art. Indigo represents serenity and violet violet represents spirit.

So I thought that was pretty interesting. I didn’t even know that. So, um, so yeah, like I mentioned before, uh, I wanted to Sarah share just some stories, um, that I could recall, um, growing up and just throughout my life regarding, uh, the LGBT, um, like people that I, I know who are gay and, um, yeah. So hopefully you’ll find it entertaining, uh, as I share them. So, um, you know, most Filipinos are Catholic.

I myself are Catholic. I’m Catholic. So I always think about how it contradicts, um, you know, Catholicism. So I always think about how it contradicts, um, you know, Catholicism. So I always think about how it contradicts, um, you know, Catholicism.

So I always think about how it contradicts, um, you know, Catholicism. So I always think about how it contradicts, um, you know, Catholicism. So I always think about how it contradicts, um, you know, Catholicism. So I always think about how it contradicts, um, you know, Catholic beliefs, uh, with like LGBT and gays and lesbians and all that, but I never tried to spend too much time on it. Although as a Catholic, you know, it’s, you know, I guess a sin or whatever, but I just tried not to even think about that.

Um, I guess, uh, you’d say I’m fortunate. I don’t know, but I, I never was really raised to look down, uh, upon different people, regardless of who they are or what they are or what they believe. Um, I always take things as a learning experience. At least that’s, uh, growing up, that’s, um, what I did. And so I was trying to remember the first time I, like, I guess, seen gay people.

Um, and the event I could recall, I think I was. Around five years old, maybe in Manila and one of my uncles, um, like told me to come watch a basketball game on TV. It was either basketball or volleyball. I can’t really remember. I know it was a sport.

And so, um, he, he told me to go watch it and he would, my uncle was with other uncles, I think two or three other people. Um, and all I remember was this when we were watching, they were just cracking up. They were just laughing. And I don’t like understand what was so funny. Cause you know, it’s, it was sports, right?

Well, if memory serves me correctly, I think it was a game between like all the athletes or the players were, were gay guys. Um, I don’t know how else to explain it, but, um, I guess their movements, um, are perceived to be feminine. And again, whatever that definition may be. Uh, you know, I, I’m just trying not to offend people. I’m just trying to explain it, uh, as how I see it.

Um, so hopefully no one takes offense, but anyway, um, so during this game, like you could just, I guess, notice their movements and, um, yeah. So, but at that time it didn’t click in, like, you know, but, but my uncles were just cracking up. Um, but that’s, that’s the earliest that I can remember or the youngest that I could remember being exposed. To something, uh, related to LGBT. Um, but, uh, as I grew up, um, I was never taught or, you know, was shown like, Hey, you know, these are different people.

You shouldn’t hang out with them or, um, never, never had I gotten, um, or remember any, any of my, you know, family members or adults that raised me to look at them that way. So, um, yeah, I mean, I’ve never looked. That any, any of them differently and, um, and I love hanging out with them. So like the first person that, um, I remember that I knew was gay was my cousin. So shout out to my cousin.

Um, and at an, at an early age, he’s probably, uh, 10 years older than me or something, something like that. But, um, when I watch. Old videos of my birthdays and stuff, they would, uh, hang out and party and I could, I could already tell like just the way he moved and stuff. Um, he wasn’t like a normal guy or whatever. Um, but he never really, he hit it.

He hit it, um, until he, um, was a bit older. And then, um, I guess he came out and in the Philippines for the most part, at least in the eighties and like nineties, it’s like a huge, like. Um, I guess he was like a normal guy. And then, um, he was like a normal guy. And then, um, he was like a normal guy.

And then, um, he was like a normal guy. And then, um, he was like a normal guy. And then, um, he was like a normal guy. And then, um, he was like a normal guy. And then, um, he was like a normal guy.

And then, um, he was like a normal guy. And then, um, he was like a normal guy. Thank you.

Transcript generated by whisper.cpp large-v3 on Apr 11, 2026 . Machine-generated — may contain errors, especially on Tagalog words.