Danton Remoto received the call for submission for this issue (which aims to celebrate current Filipino gay and
lesbian writings), he posed a question with regards the initial title I gave the issue: �Beyond Ladlad.� Referring to
the groundbreaking series of anthologies publishing by Anvil and edited by him and J. Neil C. Garcia, he asked, �Is this Oedipal? A kind of toppling down an icon?�
I hurried to answer him that it was not: nobody can ever �topple� Ladlad. It was the one book which practically showed me the light when I was a young and insecure college kid, still troubled about a certain �difference� in himself. Ladlad showed me�and I would bet countless other gay men and women as well�that I was not alone, that there was a community of people like me, and that we, too, had the perfect right to tell of ourselves to the world through literature. It was an exorcism, an epiphany, and an invitation to break free. And many of us did, thanks to Ladlad.
I told Danton that the notion was actually more of �continuing� the legacy of both Ladlad and Ladlad 2, and to explore (ambitiously now) a wider panorama of gay life in the Philippines �beyond coming out,� so to speak, the initial step which Ladlad had proudly announced, given its title alone.
I thought it was about time. Many gay men and women in the Philippines today, although still struggling with society�s deep-seated homophobia, have indeed gone beyond �coming out,� to attain a kind of unrepentant, �no-need-for-any-explanations� existence. In the pieces the current issue of Literatura has trotted out one by own over the month of April, such �in-your-face� characteristic is indeed present. They are all proudly gay and lesbian, and makes no apologies about it. Not one takes the old cue of ruing an unfortunate sexuality, or goes on melancholic drama to define what had been once perceived as regular gay tragedy. There is triumph in the voices now, a kind of assuredness that surprises and overwhelms. They are also often humorous, and often contemplative. Sometimes ironic, but never angry.
But I don�t think they serve to be �unrepentant� just for that sake alone. All of them still continue to refine, and challenge, our ideas of gayness in the Philippines, as well as bring out new issues about gay life here, which have never really been tackled at length before. Such as the issue of AIDS in Alex Maskara�s �Gay For Dummies,� or parents and their gay sons in Noel Alumit�s �Mr. and Mrs. La Questa Go Dancing,� or reading gayness in national heroes in J. Neil Garcia�s �Was Rizal Gay?�, or even a heterosexual man�s contemplation of a lover�s lesbian tendencies in Angelo Suarez�s �yes there is love beyond sex.�
In a sense the contributions that poured in tackled such a wide range of issues and a wider range of contributors (even non-gays are represented), including, of course, Suarez�s straight-man poetry tackling gay sensibilities. But there�s also self-confessed fag-hag Jessica Zafra�s now-classic humorous essay about nutribuns and the sudden increase of the gay population in �The Conspiracy of Buns.� There�s Ricardo Ramos�s queenish tales of bogus marriages and �Family Obligations,� Danton Remoto�s perfect portrait of �The Way We Live Now,� Michael Kho Lim�s delightful play of gender roles in �Lalake Ako,� Mark Cayanan�s exploration of breaking in �The Loss,� Michael Balili�s take on gay literary icons in �18973 Bonnie and Clyde,� as well as other remarkable stories, essays, plays, and poems by Bobby Flores Villasis, Ernesto Superal Yee, Niccolo Rocamora Vitug, Glenn Sevilla Mas, Carlomar Daoana, and John Bengan.
Yet what I found delightful was the influx of lesbian writings. Although there was an anthology of lesbian literature published by Anvil a few years before (Tibok, which was edited by Anna Leah Sarabia), there had been no attempts to make an anthology mixing both gay men and lesbian women�s writings. This issue may indeed be the first of its kind. And I am thankful to Lani Montreal, Shakira Andrea Sison, Libay Linsangan Cantor, Nice Rodriguez, Germaine Trittle Leonin, Mary Ann Aleli Barbieto, and Ma. Christina Ongpin for their wonderful essays, short stories, and poems.
I didn�t want to write an introduction initially because I wanted the pieces to speak for themselves. Now, near the end of April, and with another issue of Literatura coming up, I guess this postscript would have to do. I just hope that this issue proves to be something of anything to everybody who read it. And take from it something to enjoy, as well as something to learn about the intricacies of humanity outside the straight box.
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