Many times, when you question people who describe LGBTQIA+ people as “sayang,” they don’t know what they mean either I watched my best friend unfurl her hair from her usual sporty ‘do to a gentle tumble of waves down her back. I had always thought she was beautiful, no matter what she looked like, and though she was forced to wear a dress to prom and she wasn’t so excited about it, it was just another one of those countless moments I had appreciated her. Unfortunately, it was run by the kind of overtly Catholic school that had guidance counselors snitching on students who confided in them about navigating their sexuality—parents were called, and girls were punished.
Years later, my own high school barkada and I found out that when two girls who came to prom together won prom royalty, the school gave them a serious talking to and threatened to rescind their crowns, which seems superficial now but was a great pain to a pair of starry-eyed 16-year-olds just trying to find themselves and being denied that. Suffice it to say, my school continued to view the world draconically: boys wear suits, girls wear dresses. So my best friend had to wear a dress, which she rocked anyway, even if she didn’t feel totally comfortable.
A flock of our classmates suddenly surrounded my best friend, all of them craning their necks to “look at the lesbian.” Many of them ooh-ed and ahh-ed at how different she looked—to me, she was the same, with just another shine—and some even f.