“Vaklang TWAH”: Homosexuality in Honorio Bartolome de Dios’ Select Short Stories

Abstract

This study contributes to the evolving understanding of homosexuality, shedding light to sociocultural and socioeconomic influences at play in the Philippines. To represent a literary perspective, three short stories were selected from Honorio Bartolome de Dios’ book “Sa Labas ng Parlor”, namely: Atseng, Kas, and Nobena. The qualitative discourse analyses on the theme, context, and characterization provide deeper insight on the queered realities of the Filipino gay, or exaggeratedly expressed as vakla (commonly bakla). Judith Butler’s gender performativity critiques how Filipinos depend on rigid heteronormative expressions to conform to the country’s expectations shaped by complex and dissonant remnants of Western and Eastern cultural amalgamation. Additionally, the homosexual experience presents an intersectional degree of discrimination and stigma—as Kimberle Crenshaw explains it—in which sociocultural and socioeconomic facets of Filipino life confer a significant impact. Further, these factors purport Eve Sedgwick’s concept of the closet where queer individuals struggle with cognitive dissonance in their identity and expression. Honorio Bartolome de Dios has a unique, yet largely relevant, method of storytelling Filipinos in their process of and acceptance of becoming; thus, the “Vaklang TWAH” model based on de Dios’ textual portrayal of homosexuality is outlined.