Gay rights advocate fights for a ‘gender-fair’ city

Transgender woman Roi Galfo will not tolerate discrimination.

The endless cycle of discrimination and prejudice she had experienced at work forced her to take a stand.

Galfo, 34, ran as councilor in Barangay Gen. T. De Leon in Valenzuela City in the recently concluded Barangay and Sangguniang Kabataan (SK) elections, turning herself into a gay rights advocate from an ordinary call center employee.

In her first attempt to seek public office, Galfo promoted herself as the “fierce lady in action” and the “new face of anti-discrimination” in her village.

“All I wanted was a gender-fair city, and I wanted it to start in my barangay,” Galfo told INQUIRER.net in an interview.

When Galfo finished high school in year 2000, she said she decided to become a woman. Luckily, her parents were supportive of her transition to a new life as a transgender woman.

“They learned how to accept me as I was growing up,” she said.

After earning a degree in Tourism from Airlink International Aviation College, Galfo got a job as a personal assistant of former Valenzuela City Vice Mayor Jing Hernandez and later worked at various call centers in Metro Manila.

From her experience, Galfo said members of the lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender (LGBT) community were “most vulnerable” to incidents of bullying and bigotry.

“I wanted to spread unity, love, respect, and compassion. I know how it feels to be discriminated, and I know how it feels to have no one there to help you,” she said.

Discrimination, humiliation

Galfo recaled that she was training for a sales customer service representative post at a call center in Quezon City in November 2016 when he experienced workplace discrimination.

After a long day at work, she said she decided to freshen up before going home, but the human resources manager refused to allow her to use the women’s rest room.

The manager reportedly announced to her co-workers that they must only use comfort rooms “according to the gender they were born with.”

“‘Yung mga transgender agent na iyan, mag-CR (comfort room) kayo kung ano ang gender niyo nung pinanganak kayo!” Galfo quoted the HR manager as saying.

Since she knew that was the only transgender at the company, she said she felt defenseless and humiliated before everybody.

“Do you know that feeling when you’re humiliated in front of many people, and you can’t even defend yourself?” Galfo asked.

Furious, Galfo decided to resign from the company immediately. She, however, took next step: file a case before the Department of Labor and Employment (DOLE) and the National Labor Relations Commission (NLRC).

“I told myself that other transgender women like me shouldn’t have to go through [an experience like] this,” Galfo said. The cases, however, didn’t prosper as the HR manager never showed up in the hearings scheduled by the angencies.

“The DOLE gave me a referral letter to file the case at the NRLC, and the NLRC, after making me wait for months, told me that the case should be filed before courts,” she said.

“Nothing happened. The respondent never showed up. I was thinking, how do others who were discriminated like me deal with this kind of situation?” she lamented.

Losing hope

A year after the incident, Galfo said she started to lose. So she decided to elevate the case to the Commission on Human Rights (CHR).

“The cases already went through the DOLE and the NLRC, but it appeared that nothing was going to happen,” Galfo said. “I didn’t know where to go. My mind was a mess. If the cases were hopeless, I’d rather die instead of slowly suffering from depression.”

In December 2017, Galfo sent an email to the CHR stating her intent to commit suicide.

“I was shocked that I got a reply from the chairman [Chito Gascon]. He asked me to go to his office on that same day. I sent them an email at 1:00 a.m.,  chairman Gascon replied at 2:30 a.m.,” she said.

“He told me that I should not commit suicide, that life was important,” she said. In January this year, the CHR commenced its investigation on the case.

Criminal cases

On April 13, with the backing of the CHR and the Quezon City Protection Council, Galfo filed a criminal case before the Quezon City Prosecutor’s Office.

In her complaint, Galfo formally accused Miguel Yango, the HR manager of  the company he had previously worked for in Quezon City, of violating the city’s “gender-fair” ordinance, which prohibits discrimination against LGBT members.

However, as in previous scheduled  hearings, the respondent didn’t show up in the first hearing set by Assistant City Prosecutor Maria Luz Coles on May 16.

“The prosecutor told me to attend the hearing again next week (May 23). She will cancel the hearing if the respondent will not show up again,” Galfo told INQUIRER.net in a text message. “She will [then] decide on what to do next.”

Galfo added that according to the prosecutor, “there was no motion to dismiss the case” and “no further postponement will be granted unless on exceptional meritorious grounds.”

A new beginning

Meanwhile. the CHR referred Galfo to several LGBT support groups such as the Asean Sogie Caucus, an organization of gay activists from eight Southeast Asian countries.

A bill mandating the equal protection of members of the LGBT community is pending before Congress.

READ: Duterte asked to end discrimination, push for passage of Sogie bill

The passage of the Sogie Equality Bill was unopposed at the House of Representatives in 2017. However, the legislation is still up for the third and final reading at the Senate.

“I studied the Sogie Equality Bill, and I just don’t get it why it hasn’t [been] passed yet. I feel that politicians were only using us, members of the LGBT, during election campaigns,” Galfo lamented.

The gay rights advocate has also been invited for a discussion on LGBT rights at the National Youth Commission (NYC) by one of its commissioners, Rhea Penaflor.

Among the topics discussed was NYC’s officer-in-charge Ronald Cardema’s statement that the NYC was “not an LGBT commission.”
 
In a Malacañang press briefing in April, Cardema said that the NYC would focus more on programs aligned with President Rodrigo Duterte’s “desired policies.”

READ: National Youth Commission cuts ties with TAYO Awards Foundation

“I was furious when I was telling him during that meeting that he was not with us (the LGBT community). He told me it was not what he meant, but I said it was clear that his office is closing its doors to the LGBT [community],” Galfo said. “I even scoffed at him, telling him the LGBT would put up its own national commission, and we would seek to abolish the NYC,” she added.

However, the discussion ended well. “I just told him that he should not repeat making such statements.

Village elections

As an LGBT rights advocate, Galfo said she believes she needs to take her fight to the next level: as a councilor in her own village, which has 40,000 registered voters.

She disclosed that her fellow villagers  were “shocked” by her bid to run for office.

“At first, they told me I was not yet ready, considering that 37 aspiring candidates were running for only seven council seats,” Galfo said. “But during my campaign, I told everyone that I would be the new face of anti-discrimination. I promised to fight for what is right, not just for me, but also for others in need.

Galfo’s campaign machinery was made up of only her parents, close friends and other relatives.

“They helped me print and put up my tarpaulins, and they helped my campaign by word of mouth,” Galfo said. “I only had a few days to conduct a house-to-house campaign,” she said. “I was friendly with everyone. I even took selfies with other candidates.”

But when the winners were announced on election day, it wasn’t the result she was expecting. She lost her first bid for public office.

“I was expecting to win…but it was intense. There were even reports of vote-buying. But yes, I just thought that maybe it wasn’t my time yet,” Galfo lamented. “I learned that I have to prepare more. I can say that I became more confident despite losing because I know that I fought fair. Not only that, I also made friends along the way.”

Moving forward

Even after her defeat in the election and with the labor cases she filed in court still pending, Galfo is not giving up.

“I will still push forward with my ambition to become a politician,” she said.

The gay rights advocate is now applying for a position at the National Youth Commission. “I wanted to be a part of their planning team, or maybe their gender and development team,” she said.

But Galfo stressed that her legal battles weren’t over.

“While I intend to finish this discrimination case first, I will continue to help. I will always be an anti-discrimination advocate,” she said. /ee

(PHOTOS from Roi Galfo’s Facebook page).