A Note from the Guest Editor

Whether we are organising communities for empowerment, staging pride events for visibility, lobbying for non-discriminatory legislation, discoursing sexuality in the classroom, or facilitating online discussions, we give evidence to a collective reality and carve out a common space in this sexuality-unfriendly world.

Yet formal recognition and understanding of gender and sexuality issues remain scant. Within social movements, such issues have either unified activists or further deepened conflict. Whether they are bound by loose threads or by tight knots, the relationship between lesbian, gay, bisexual, transsexual, queer (LGBTQ) activists, feminists, and human rights advocates has been a source of tension and/or solidarity.

With stigma and discrimination against LGBTQ people persistently occurring at a global scale, it is an opportune time for participants of these various social movements to engage in meaningful conversations about convergences and differences on gender and sexuality issues. It is not by accident that Isis International–Manila, through WIA magazine, decided to devote an entire issue on the theme “Queering.”

While this WIA issue celebrates LGBTQ life, it likewise recognises the LGBTQ experiences of harassment, violence, discrimination, and persecution.

As a concept, “queering” is evolving and changing through time. As an experience, it connotes continuous movement and action. Thus, we need to keep the conversation going, to sharpen our analysis, and to approach the issues with a broader, more inclusive look. Queering, after all, is an ongoing journey of rebirth and reconstruction, of redefining meanings and reshaping history.

Malu S. Marin
Guest Editor