We wear a different kind of exuberance when we are confident in what we look like. We stand and communicate with the people around us with pride when our clothes make us feel powerful in our own respective ways.
It’s common knowledge for a reason to say that our style truly is the easiest way to express ourselves—preferences, personality, age, beliefs, capabilities, culture, and even our emotions, unravel a layer of who we are in what we wear. But let’s be honest, it can be an everyday feat, or at least for some, to keep that constant conviction of feeling good.
And no, this is not just a case of wearing the wrong pair of pants that had you tugging in all the most uncomfortable places. This is when you start to feel all the ogling side eyes and whispers tearing you down because you’re wearing a crop top or a skirt, and you are biologically a man.
In a now-deleted TikTok video by user @casteryuuske that showed the “comedic” exhibition of male students during a Pep Rally at De La Salle University, has been getting massive disapproval from the online community for using cross-dressing as a theme for cheap laughs and mockery entertainment.
via Twitter
via Twitter
via Twitter
via Twitter
via Twitter
via Twitter
Crossdressing, or the act of a person who wears clothes designed for the opposite sex, is one thing for self-expression and one’s gender identity, but should never be for anyone’s source of entertainment despite it being an innocent act “for fun”.
It’s hard enough for our Transvestite brothers and sisters to make their expression visible to the public after a tough time of trying to build their confidence in a vacuum behind closed doors.
Being mislabeled as a “deviant, mentally ill, fetishistic, predatory, or an abomination to god all because I choose to dress beyond my biology,” as said by Savannah Hauk in a Ted Talk where she shared his/her experience as a cross-dresser, proves why it’s not so “harmless” for cross-dressing to simply be a performative act.
In an article by Lifestyle.INQ that talked about real-life threats experienced by trans women, after the news about Jennifer Laude’s killer was pardoned by former President Rodrigo Duterte broke back in 2020, Lui Castañeda, a PR practitioner who was also featured in the same article, told her story about how difficult it is to be a transwoman in a country that has deeply rooted Catholic values.
”At face value, this resolution implies that we [trans community] are only third-class citizens in our own country—as if it’s not enough that we have to deal with so much inequality and injustice on a daily basis. As it is, trans women always have to work harder compared to our cis counterparts to prove that we deserve our place in society,” Castañeda said.
Some even miss the opportunity of being granted their basic rights because of choosing to express who they are.
Dylan Transico Silva, who is biologically born a female, wanted to attend one of the most important days of his/her student life to graduate in men’s attire. However, after finding out that the university he/she is attending does not allow LGBTQIA++ person who has not yet undergone a medical transition to wear clothes “appropriate” to their gender expression, Silva decided to just comply and allow the school to digitally remove the necktie from his picture being handed a diploma onstage.
These are just a few of the daunting realities faced by people who choose to dress simply because they want to feel comfortable and liberate themselves from the confines of the labels being tagged on how they identify themselves as.
Released a few hours ago as of writing, De La Salle University’s Student Government President Giorgina Escoto, released a statement about the cross-dressing performance, saying that it does not live up to the “safe and inclusive” environment that the school lobbies for. Escoto said that she has raised the issue with the school’s administrators and vows to take action.
via TikTok
If the students and moderators saw the cross-dressing performance in the video during the DLSU Pep Rally as simply an act of innocent fun, it must be easy for them to just end the day without having to worry about the threats for choosing to cross-dress.
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