If you have a piece of meat sticking out of your front, then you use the men’s toilet, stressed Senate President Vicente Sotto III as he candidly told reporters there was “no chance” the Sexual Orientation and Gender Identity and Expression Equality bill would pass in the Senate.
Sotto described as “silly” using Starbucks as example for an establishment which has a gender-neutral comfort room.
“It’s silly! Why? Because one at a time ang gamit kaya pwedeng gender+less,” he said.
He also posed a challenge to a woman, man, and a gay to try using such kind of gender-less comfort room.
“See what happens?” said the Senate leader as he disclosed that more senators were inclined to support the Anti-discrimination bill which also encompasses the rights of people belonging to the Third Sex.
He said the anti-discrimination on persons might pass, but a bill focused on gays, on which the SOGIE has had no chance.
Sotto said the Senate could pass an anti-discrimination bill but not one that was focused only on members of the LGBTQ (lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, and queer) community.
“But focused on gays, which the SOGIE bill is, and religious and academic freedom impeded plus smuggling of same-sex marriage? No chance,” the Senate leader said.
Sotto said he could not fathom the thinking of women who wanted to allow gays in their toilet.
“In all women’s CR, there is always a long line, and they still add the beki,” he added, in reference to the gays.
The SOGIE bill seeks to criminalize discrimination on the basis of sexual orientation and gender identity and expression.
Earlier, Senator Risa Hontiveros called on her colleagues to immediately pass the SOGIE bill after a transgender woman was barred from using a women’s toilet room in a mall in Quezon City.
The bill was passed at the House of Representatives last 2017, but its counterpart version at the Senate languished at the period of interpellation.
Hontiveros refiled the bill in the 18th Congress.