The bakla in Filipino children’s picturebooks: the intersectionality of sexual orientation, gender expression, class, and societal expectations

Abstract

This study addresses the paucity of research on Filipino queer-themed children’s literature. Scholarship on queer-themed children’s literature is dominated by analyses of English children’s books that often feature White, middle-class, Christian, and able-bodied queer characters. As such, academic discussion about queerness has become paradoxically limited.

To enrich existing discourses about queerness, this thesis offers an exploration of the representations of the bakla in select Filipino children’s picturebooks. In contrast to the Western framework of separating gender identity from sexual orientation, the construct of kabaklaan in Filipino culture is a conflation of both gender and sexuality. It underwent numerous redefinitions and reappropriations from precolonial to contemporary Filipino society, leading to a multitude of assumptions that simultaneously invoke pride and discrimination for the Filipino gay community.

Guided by an analytical framework built on Judith Butler’s concept of gender performativity, Kimberlé Crenshaw’s intersectionality, and J. Neil Garcia extensive work on the construct of kabaklaan, the author of this thesis subjected the following children’s picturebooks to critical content analysis: Ang Bonggang Bonggang Batang Beki by Rhandee Garlitos (2013), Uncle Sam by Segundo Matias (2014), and Dalawa ang Daddy ni Billy by Michael De Guzman (2018). These three picturebooks were selected from a corpus built on queer children’s books identified in various Filipino literary journals, university and publishing house catalogues, and online resources based on the criteria of being works of realistic fiction that explicitly mention the word bakla in the story.

Analysis of the three picturebooks shows various representations of kabaklaan embodied in a parloristang bakla, an effeminate beki child, and a homonormative bakla couple. These characters perform gender through clothing, behaviors, and language use that present relatively stable and singular gender identities. Notably, the picturebook Dalawa ang Daddy ni Billy is particularly different compared to the other two because it anchors the definition of kabaklaan (being gay) on sexual orientation and it introduces bisexuality. The latter is a theme that none of the children’s books analyzed in relevant studies featured. From an intersectional lens, the bakla characters are ostensibly middle class and able-bodied.

All three stories claim to promote a wholehearted acceptance of bakla individuals. However, some of the approaches employed and resolutions asserted imply varying degrees of
problematic acceptance. The stories highlight queerness and attribute certain prejudices to discrimination directed at a collective identity but conclude with a form of acceptance that only covers individuals who are able to demonstrate their specific capabilities. Such narratives emphasize individualism and exceptionalism instead of endorsing a more fundamental change of attitude towards queer people in general.