In a snap, the national obsession that involves Bea Alonzo, Gerald Anderson, and Julia Barretto has been dislodged on its number one gossip stop and we have Gretchen to congratulate for that.
No! We are not talking of the Barretto kind of Gretchen nor the Fullido one. The new Gretchen who is the latest tempest creator is Gretchen Custodio Diez.
She is a transgender woman barred by a janitress to use the female comfort room in a mall located in Quezon City. What happened is chronicled and documented in a video that can be viewed on a social media site for the public’s voyeuristic pleasure.
Celebrities such as Heart Evangelista, Ice Seguerra, Jervi Li also known as KaladKaren Davila, Frankie Pangilinan, Quezon City Mayor Joy Belmonte, Congresswoman Geraldine Roman, Senator Risa Hontiveres, and majority of the pink community are up in arms shouting “discrimination” and maybe “off with her head” for the sanitation crew who realized quite late the mistake she committed. She issued an apology and promised to study the rights of the people belonging to the LGBTQ community.
As a gay person who leaves the safety of my home donned in a woman’s dress, and often times, gets to be treated like a woman with some chivalrous men offering their seats and spaces in various modes of public transport, I can understand the hate and rage majority of us feel with regard to the harrowing experience of Gretchen.
I love women clothings because I’m comfortable when I wear them. It makes me feel confident and yes, feeling pretty is not a crime, right? I get a kick when an individual addresses me as “mam,” “madam,” or “miss.” I get to feel beautiful points with the initial shock written all over the faces of men when they see me going out of a men’s restroom, or when they see me powdering my nose and putting on my vanilla scented cologne inside the confines of the gentlemen’s pissing room, with them wondering if they are entering the wrong comfort room.
May I add, that I wear female clothes because I want people to learn that they must and should look beyond the superficial and that passing judgement on what a person wears or how he or she looks, is only for the immature, juvenile and unlearned. I want them to respect who I am especially since I don’t treat them with contempt or disrespect. As for those who are annoyed with my appearance, I can do nothing if that is their nature. I am not here on earth to please them and get their nod of approval.
Most of times, since I don’t want men to be on the verge of a nervous breakdown because of my feminine energies over pouring in a men’s restroom, I ask the restroom keepers, if I can use the senior’s comfort room and often than not, they acquiesce to my request with a ready smile. In the few instances that they insist that the CR is just for senior citizens use, I refuse to argue with them and enter the men’s restroom and into my cubicle to deal with the call of nature.
In my life as a gay man who wears female clothes on a daily basis, I never attempted to use the rest rooms delegated for biological females. They do not need to state the obvious. It is just for them. The privacy and comfort that their restrooms provide is not only important, it is almost a sacred place to them.
It’s just unfortunate that with all leaps and bounds success that members of the pink community has already achieved and continue to reap, there are still people who treat gay men with disgust, disdain, still considered as immoral who are plagues and scums of the universe.
Thus, I cannot help but wonder, most especially to those who are high flying and adorned, what is their take on this tempest?
When do we get to read the reactions of Vice Ganda, Boy Abunda. Paolo Ballesteros, Ricky Reyes, and the other gay men who are now powerful, rich and successful?
As I conclude my Arias, I will continue to fight my way, it is in my nature be a good and kind person, and my enemies and those who do not understand, killing them with my kindness and grace, is what I do best, wearing my designer women outfits, of course.