Michael A. Rosegrant (any pronouns said with respect) is a storyteller whose work centers identity, family, and history as a way to combat oppression. They wrote this piece upon reconciling their gender with a buried history revealed to them by J. Neil C. Garcia’s article, “Male Homosexuality in the Philippines: a short story.”

growing up,

when people said:

“michael, you are too pretty to be a boy”

i laughed and replied, “okay”

(i didn’t know what that meant)

i thought “why did they say that?”

instead of “wow...they noticed something”

before spain colonized the philippines, one of our words made for third-gender people was the name

bayoguin

derived from a species of bamboo called

bayog

which grows like this

)

(bent)

bayog

bamboo

blooms

beautifully

bent but

unbroken

from the

underbrush,

it breaks

boundaries

with its birth

for no reason

besides the fact it was

born to do

just that.

bayog is just as strong as all other bamboo

but bayog goes by a different name

because bayog was born different,

born bent,

born curved,

born special,

born beautiful in their own way.

they transcend gender “bamboo”.

growing up,

when people say:

“michael, you are too pretty to be a boy.”

i smile and reply, “i know.”

Photo by Pablo Azurduy on Unsplash