THE DEATH of transgender woman, Jennifer Laude has sparked an outrage in the Lesbian Gay Bisexual and Transgender community or LGBT. Laude was allegedly murdered by Joseph Pemberton, a US Marine in a motel in Olongapo City last October. Witness says that Pemberton didn’t know that murdered Filipina was a transgender and this has become a rallying point for LGBT rights. Activist group points out that the killing is a clear manifestation of discrimination against LGBT. They claim that until now LGBT is not accepted in the society. Transgender women are often mocked as vulgar, immoral, and stereotyped as prostitute. Is it true that they only seek men for sex or money?
Venus Brum, hailed from Cebu and Anthony Mountney, British met in a pub during the annual and global LGBT festival, in Birmingham, UK in 2011. He realized Venus’ original gender right there and then. It started with a friendly tête-à-tête then became Facebook friends. They regularly chatted on FB but didn’t really hang out because Venus was in a relationship with another British bloke at that time, albeit Anthony was smitten with Venus’ Morena beauty the moment he first laid his eyes on her. Venus and Anthony called it fate when they saw each other in Pattaya Bangkok on New Year’s eve of 2012. It was their first proper date. They went out for a meal, watched the fire works display and since then, they were inseparable until they returned to the UK. They decided to cohabitate after four months. They got engaged and married the same year.
Venus was not only Anthony’s first serious transgender relationship but also his first and only marriage. Dating a transgender according to Anthony is no different from wooing a straight woman. He did the first move however, transgender are more straightforward. They don’t beat around the bush, if they like you, they will tell and show you. No chasing. “Trans are more feminine than the real women and making love with trans is ten times better. I get the love instead of the kids, cos when women got kids the kids come first in the relationship. It’s all about the kids that’s why some blokes who are married with straight women tend to have an affair”explained the Brit. Anthony was with a straight woman for eight years before he met our Filipina. “I don’t really care what’s under her pants but if she choses to undergo sex reassignment surgery, I’m all the way behind her back” said Anthony. Venus was the first transgender that he introduced to his family and she was totally accepted.
Venus has undergone breast implants in Thailand and is currently undergoing Hormone Replacement Therapy. “I see myself as a woman, I never thought that I am different to any other “biological” women in the world. For me your sex at birth does not choose your gender Identity. I look like a woman, I act like one and I feel like one.”
According to Venus, she acts like what a regular straight wife does. “I show it to the person, I love, I show him that he’s the only man in the world and I cook good food, cos I believe that the way to a mans heart is thru his stomach.” Anthony couldn’t agree more with his wife. “She’s pain in the ass, moody, thinks she’s entitled to everything” cajoled Anthony “but I love her and for me she’s the most beautiful girl in the world.”
There’s a perception that relationship between straight men and transsexuals are not lasting. In the Philippines, those straight men who hook up with trans are accused of being only after the sex or money. Venus claimed this to be somehow true; she had been into a number of failed relationships and it was only with Anthony that she found true Love. “You can just imagine the amount of men in the UK who likes to date someone like us. However, it takes a real man and a big courage to date a transgender, I have a big RESPECT for those men who date/love/marry women like us, because they get the same hate/discrimination that we are subjected to every single day” said Venus.
Jennifer Laude was criticised by some conservatives as lewd because she got a German fiancé and yet still hooked up with the US service man. “Transgender relationship is a case to case basis just like any other relationship… I don’t see the difference between a straight couple having an issue in their relationship just like ours, defended Venus.”
No one deserves to be hurt because of sexual orientation and gender identity. Human rights accompanied by responsibility must be enjoyed by anyone regardless or race, religion and sex.
