I’m proud of myself that I’m not a lesbian. For me I really am
just a man.
Sheilfa: So again, how do you look at yourself, masculine? Feminine? Because last time you said you’re feminine.
Mherz: Feminine.
Sheilfa: Because?
Mherz: Because…
Sheilfa: What’s feminine, by the way?
Mherz: I don’t know.
Sheilfa: See. When you say feminine, you wear your hair long, you put on lipstick, and you move like a girl. Those are feminine. When you say masculine, you move like a man. How do you think of yourself, feminine?
Mherz: I’m masculine alright.
Sheilfa: So how would you like to be so described, what are the terms or the words you would use or you would like others to use to describe you.
Mherz: None. I’m just like this. I’m happy like this.
Sheilfa: What do you mean by like this?
Mherz: This.
Sheilfa: Lesbian?
Mherz: Yes. Just a lesbian.
Sheilfa: What are the words you’re comfortable with? Are you comfortable with being called timbura?
Mherz: No.
Sheilfa: No. Okay. Lesbian?
Mherz: No.
Sheilfa: Tomboy?
Mherz: Of course, no.
Sheilfa: What then?
Mherz: If I am addressed? Just my name.
Sheilfa: Okay.
Mherz: Because I’m proud of myself that I’m not a lesbian. For me I really am
just a man.
Sheilfa: There you are. See? So for you, you’re a man?
Mherz: Yes.
Sheilfa: Ah. Because if you are called tomboy, or lesbian, it’s like you're neither nor?
Mherz: Yes.
Sheilfa: Okay.
Mherz: Like something that isn’t good.
Sheilfa: Like you’re not complete.
Mherz: Yes.Like you do bad things.
Sheilfa: That’s according to the old school. But… up to this time, it’s still like that?
Mherz: Yes. It’s still like that.
Sheilfa: Male? That’s how you would like to be seen?
Mherz: Yes.
Sheilfa: Alright. When did you realize that you were different?
Mherz: When I was 16.
Sheilfa: What happened.
Mherz: When my father beat me.
Sheilfa: Okay. So you too went through that.
Mherz: Yes.
Sheilfa: He didn’t threaten to have you shot?
Mherz: No. He won’t do that. He just said you’re a good-for-nothing son of a bitch. My father is all threat. He never executes them.
Sheilfa: But that time he had you beaten.
Mherz: Yes. Came home drunk.
Sheilfa: You came home drunk?
Mherz: It wasn’t I who was drunk. He was.
Sheilfa: I see.
Mherz: And he turned on me because I was the first he ran into.
Sheilfa: When you ran into him you didn’t say anything that offended him?
Mherz: None. He just pounced on me. Haha. Without a word. Just like that. Like just out of the blue. I was shocked. He dragged me home. Then he punched me. That was nothing to me, I’m used to it.
Sheilfa: Ah. He ran into you at the footbridge and right on he pounced on you.
Mherz: Yes. I was on my way out. He is like that. If he is drunk, he does not want to see our faces.
Sheilfa: By the time he had already acquired a second wife.
Mherz: Yesm.
Sheilfa: How old were you when your father remarried?
Mherz: I cannot remember anymore because I was too young.
Sheilfa: He was already having this woman who…
Mherz: He already had another wife even before I was born.
Sheilfa: How many are you?
Mhera: Eight.
Sheilfa: From the first wife?
Mherz: Yes.
Sheilfa: And you’re the?
Mherz: I’m fourth.
Sheilfa: You realized that you were different because when he beat you, you felt that you could not give up being a man or…
Mherz: Yes. He kept on saying I should mend my ways. I said, it’s not that easy for me to change my style and stop being me.
Sheilfa: Which is?
Mherz: He said I will not come to any good if I keep on with what I was doing, if I insist that I’m a man. I said, but I’m not neglecting my studies because of my style. He kept on persuading me.
Sheilfa: At the time you were still studying? Where were you, in third second year?
Mherz: Yes. At the time I was still in school. Second year.
Sheilfa: How about your mother?
Mherz: My mother you could not hear any complaint from her. I’m okay by her. She said there’s nothing she can do, I am all that I am. She said she’s grateful enough that I'm still alive.
Sheilfa: Rather than dead?
Mherz: Yes.
Sheilfa: Because around this time, you already went through a lot of street fights?
Mherz: I think I started getting into fights when I was still in Grade Six.
Sheilfa: Twelve years old.
Sheilfa: All your friends were male.
Mherz: Yes.
Sheilfa: By the time that you were fourteen, you were already causing your father a lot of trouble.
Mherz: Yes.
Sheilfa: By that time you were already taking girls home?
Mherz: No. Not yet.
Sheilfa: You only saw then on the street?
Mherz: No. I still didn’t have any girlfriend when I was in elementary.
Sheilfa: No. I mean when you were fourteen.
Mherz: Ah, yes.
Sheilfa: That time that he punched you…
Mherz: Yes. I was already taking girls to our house. One time he even beat me because I brought home a girl.
Sheilfa: How many times did your father beat you?
Mherz: Three. Just three times.
Sheilfa: Why did he stop?
Mherz: Because there’s nothing he can… he could not just convince me.
Sheilfa: You never fought back?
Mherz: What?
Sheilfa: Never that you punched him back each time that he lifted an arm against
you?
Mherz: I don’t fight him back. Hah. He will shoot me.
Sheilfa: Haha. What’s your father like, a councilor?
Mherz: Yes. Number three.
Sheilfa: So since he’s a councilor, is there any hope for him to… because he understands that if one is a lesbian, there’s nothing that one can do about that, so instead of not helping, would he support us?
Mherz: No, it’s like this. Before, when I was still at school, he really was happy about me. He said he doesn’t care what I am up to for as long as I don’t start bumming around. Because he really wanted for me to be a policeman.
Sheilfa: Okay.
Mherz: I promised to him I will be one.
Sheilfa: How old were you when he said that to you? Before he punched you?
Mherz: When I was in Grade Six. When I graduated.
Sheilfa: Okay.
Mherz: When I graduated he really was very proud of me.
Sheilfa: You were in the honor’s list?
Mherz: Yes. Third honor. Then I fucked up. When I got to high school that’s when I started bumming around. I neglected my studies. I was really drawn to my friends’ rackets.
Sheilfa: Girls. Alcohol. Shabu.
Mherz: Yes. I wasn’t into shabu as yet. Not yet. I got into shabu only in 2007.
Sheilfa: How old were you then?
Mherz: Maybe seventeen.
Sheilfa: You got into the habit?
Mherz: No.
Sheilfa: You said once a month.
Mherz: Only if I needed to stay up and work. Like if someone died and had to be buried the next day. What’s magjaga in Tagalog, M?
Sheilfa: To watch, to vigil.
Mherz: Yes. Like that.
Sheilfa: So you have to stay awake.
Mherz: Yes. Because it’s a night-long activity. So that’s what we would do to stay awake.
Sheilfa: So you use it as stimulant, like coffee. But later, you use it if there’s an occasion, like a birthday.
Mherz: No. I don’t do that during birthdays because you have no appetite for food if you’ve taken that. And then… you keep on thinking away. So if there’s a birthday, I don’t do it. It’s mostly for work.
Sheilfa: You said that the last time you got mauled at the pool, you’d taken….
Mherz: No. I wasn’t on drugs then.
Sheilfa: You said you had taken some meth, The bar…
Mherz: None. Just The bar.
Sheilfa: It’s on record!
Mherz: No.
Sheilfa: Son of a fag.
Mherz: No.
Sheilfa: Yes. You said you all had taken some meth but that you were not high.
Mherz: No. It was only The bar. I didn’t take any shabu then.
Sheilfa: Anyway, so that’s how you look at yourself, but your father, and some of your friends, they like to look at you as a girl who is just tomboyish.
Mherz: No. They think of me as a boy, as a young man.
Sheilfa: Okay.
Sheilfa: Beside your father, who else among your friends would like for you to be other than what you are now?
Mherz: Many. Including some of my family.
Sheilfa: Right. Because if you’re a tomboy, you’re around lots of bad people?
Mherz: Yes. Because all of my relatives, they’re religious, they go to the mosque for worship. I’m the only who doesn’t.
Sheilfa: Do you think of yourself as Muslim?
Mherz: Of course, I’m Muslim. But I don’t pray everyday. Before I used to pray,
but only in the house. Even when we went to Zamboanga? I would join Inah Cely for worship.
Sheilfa: Where?
Mherz: In the house only. But it is so easy for me to think evil.
Sheilfa: Like what?
Mherz: If I don’t want to keep up with my study, for instance. Or if I want to take drugs I will really do it.
Sheilfa: Because you’re angry. You know that people won’t be happy if you do it. But before, you didn’t think of lesbians as bad people?
Mherz: They’re bad influence.
Sheilfa: You know of any lesbian who isn’t bad influence?
Mherz: I haven’t done any research yet in Jolo, none yet.
Sheilfa: How did you look at fags? Say you think of them as sinful, bad people?
Mherz: For me they’re just like the lesbians. Sinful, bad people.
Sheilfa: Even non-lesbians and non-gays they’re also sinful.
Mherz: Lesbians and women they’re sinful.
Sheilfa: Whooa.
Mherz: My elders would say that if their wishes will be granted, they would want
for all their children to be male. Because women are the progenitors of sin.
Sheilfa: Like… sexually promiscuous?
Mherz: No. Because in….
Sheilfa: In the Bible?
Mherz: Yes. There are no female children then, they would be killed, because women bring on shame to the family.
Sheilfa: You believe this stuff?
Mherz: Yes. Because I’ve seen some like that. Women. They bring trouble to their elders. Like rape. Or have sex with their boyfriends and get themselves pregnant. They would not tell their parents…
Sheilfa: You don’t think of that as… alright, go on, go on.
Mherz: Then you will just see them walking the road pregnant. Shameful, is it not?
Sheilfa: But you don’t think of men as equally sinful? Because women could not get into these things alone.
Mherz: Yes. But you see, with men….
Sheilfa: With men it’s okay.
Mherz: Yes. They can do anything, nothing is prohibited. You see, everything that lesbians do, men also do.
Sheilfa: Is that why you turned out a lesbian? Because nothing will be disallowed you? Because anything that men do is good.
Mherz: Yes. It’s okay.
Sheilfa: Then it’s not the women’s fault. It’s the fault of the laws and all these religious teachings.
Mherz: Yes.
Sheilfa: But you see, religious texts are up to the interpretation of preachers and religious teachers. And they’re all male. Of course.
Mherz: In our religion, the religious teachers say lesbians are haram.
Sheilfa: Same with Catholics.
Mherz: Yes. It’s really not allowed. They say it’s the most abominable thing here on earth, tomboys. Siksah. That brings on eternal punishment. When they make these sermons at the gym, I do listen, and that’s what they say there.
Sheilfa: Even among Christian churches, it’s also like that.
Sheilfa: You said before that you got beaten so many times. But the one with details, that part that happened at the swimming pool.
Mherz: That wasn’t the last, when I got mauled at the swimming pool.
Sheilfa: After the swimming pool incident, you got beaten again? How many times?
Mherz: Four.
Sheilfa: Okay. Who did these? Didn’t you say the swimming pool incident was the
first time that you got hurt? Maybe they got wind of it and they said, so this dyke is not really that invincible, let’s do it again. So they got you three times.
Mherz: Yes. And they made a mistake.
Sheilfa: Because? You struck back?
Sheilfa: When was it, Mherz?
Mherz: When we went home from Zamboanga.
Sheilfa: Really? What happened?
Mherz: At the port area. I got into a fight.
Sheilfa: How?
Mherz: He was a porter and he was insisting on lifting my bag for me when I wasn't asking him. Then he said, you should be a girl, then maybe I will like you. I said, You son of a bitch. Then he went like this, Why, you want to fight? I said, Why, you think I won’t? Then the guard came at us.
Sheilfa: Oh, a pity.
Mherz: Why?
Sheilfa: No action.
MM: You want action?
Sheilfa: Yes. I want action.
MM: Knock him in the head. (Laughter.)
Sheilfa: Okay. That’s once. The second?
Mherz: In our place. Friend of my sister.
Sheilfa: Nadsilina?
Mherz: Yes.
Sheilfa: How old is she?
Mherz: I don’t know.
Sheilfa: Maybe you also don’t know how old are you?
Mherz: I really don’t listen to their stuff. I don’t care about them.
Sheilfa: Alright.
Mherz: You see I’m selfish.
Sheilfa: What?
Mherz: Selfish.
Sheilfa: Yes. A selfish cad.
Mherz: Yes. At home. But with my friends I’m not selfish.
Sheilfa: I feel sorry for your mother. And your sisters. But never mind. Okay. The second time you got beaten.
Mherz: He was courting my sister. My sister doesn’t like him. She’s young. She said to me he is forcing himself on her. She wasn’t even finished talking yet and I was already in their house. When he got out, I said, Hey, you come here. Then I punched him. We were taken to the barangay.
Sheilfa: Where did you hit him?
Mherz: Here.
Sheilfa: He got a blackeye.
Mherz: Yes. The barangay councilor there said, shame on you, you’re a man and you got beaten, he said, only by a girl?
Sheilfa: Hahaha. You had a fistfight? He really fought you?
Mherz: Yes. We exchanged punches. The councilor there said, she really is a troublemaker, for a girl. I didn’t make any comment.
Sheilfa: They didn’t have you blottered?
Mherz: No. Why would they have me blottered? My relatives will kill them.
Sheilfa: Alright.
Mherz: My relatives are really vicious. That’s why I’m like this. An arrogant bastard.
Sheilfa: That’s why your head swelled.
Mherz: They always take my side. Even if it’s my fault. Mother would tell them, you leave her alone and let her be killed by strangers.
Sheilfa: But in the Tausug tradition, isn’t it a source of pride for you, to have a member of the clan who is brave?
Mherz: Not really. But my father, he really wants for his family to protect me. If my father finds out that I got into a fight and none of my relatives helped me, he will get mad. That’s why his brothers are also afraid to leave me alone to my foes.
Sheilfa: The third?
Nadz: At Takut-takut. The young boy taunted him, said, Hot air! He went back, What did you say? Hot air?
Sheilfa: That’s not a fight. Just a threat of violence.
Mherz: They were playing this leg game. Then I gave back to Nhadz her cell phone. That was when we talked on the phone, when you called? I said, Kah Sherfa called. Then this kid said, Pulma! I went back to him. I said who are you calling Pulma? He said, no, not you. I didn’t punch him. I just pushed him. Just like this. He is big. Bigger than I. I asked the others, how about you, you want to fight? They all turned away because they didn't like trouble, haha.
Sheilfa: How many were they?
Mherz: Many.
Sheilfa: How old?
Nadz: Kids.
Mherz: They're all bigger than me.
Sheilfa: How about your girlfriends and those who are close to you, do they also get harassed or got threats because of their relationship with you?
Mherz: None.
Sheilfa: The girl’s parents… didn’t he beat you because she didn’t go home for like three nights?
Mherz: It was just one night.
Sheilfa: I should be redoing the interviews all the time. The data keep on changing.
Mherz: I don’t know. Because when you last interviewed me, I had a headache.
Sheilfa: So there was no threat to harm you? Didn’t your father threaten to disinherit you for being a tomboy or threaten to send you out into the streets?
Mherz: No. In the first place I have nothing to inherit from him.
Sheilfa: Correct.
Mherz: His being a womanizer is all I can inherit from him. That should be fine by me.
Sheilfa: Yes. Your father is a womanizer, no. How many wives has he got?
Mherz: Many. And he’s got children with a Brigade woman. A whore.
Sheilfa: A Christian woman? So he has a whore? What does it mean when one says a woman from the Brigade, a woman who makes a living servicing the soldiers at the Brigade?
Mherz: Yes.
Sheilfa: Her customers are soldiers?
Mherz: Yes. He was her customer and they begot children. Three. They have been together for many long years. Now he could not leave her.
Sheilfa: A Zamboanguena?
Mherz: Yes.
Sheilfa: So this woman got three children by three different men?
Mherz: No. Only by my father.
Sheilfa: With your father she got three children?
Mherz: Yes. We got to find out only much later when… he took her home. He had to stand by what he did, he said, because they got children, he said.
Sheilfa: That’s the second wife?
Mherz: No. Third.
Sheilfa: Thought your father has only two wives.
Mherz: No. Many. But he didn’t wed the others. He introduced this woman to us and told us he had to support her because of the children, said he is afraid of karma.
Sheilfa: That term karma, what’s that in your language?
Mherz: Suli.
Sheilfa: Were you always that temperamental?
Mherz: Yes.
Sheilfa: And did anyone ever tell you to… say, none ever threatened to have you killed or something?
Mherz: None. But my father’s sister said she will have me brought to a mental hospital.
Sheilfa: Hahaha. How old were you then?
Mherz: Already this old. In 2009. They live in Manila, they’re at San Mateo. Then they came here and when they saw me, why did you turn out into a tomboy? Because when they first came here, I wasn’t a certified tomboy yet, not formally tomboy, I was still hiding it.
Sheilfa: How many years were those when you were not yet a formal tomboy? Thought you said you were born a tomboy.
Mherz: I was in Grade Two. I was born a tomboy but for a little while I hid it. Because my aunties were really strict. She was the one who was sending me to school.
Sheilfa: That’s the aunt that adopted you?
Mherz: Yes.
Sheilfa: The one who was also a tomboy.
Mherz: No.
Sheilfa: You said you’ve an aunt that adopted you, who was living with another
woman.
Mherz: That’s on my mother’s side. This one is on my father’s side. They’re really strict.
Sheilfa: Because of your being a tomboy, are there relatives who, instead of staying close to you, they stay away?
Mherz: Yes. Because they don’t like lesbians.
Sheilfa: How about your male friends? Has there been a change?
Mherz: None really. They just tell me sometimes to change my style. They say, Mherz, that’s old crap, get on with the years.
Sheilfa: Which means?
Mherz: Like get on with what’s current, say in 2009 or 2010. Because by now I should really be a real man if only I have money.
Sheilfa: Any attempted suicide?
Mherz: None.
Sheilfa: You never thought of killing yourself? But often you want to kill people?
Mherz: Yes. That’s it.
Sheilfa: Haha.
Mherz: I want to be alone and be the only person left on earth.
Sheilfa: Hahaha!
Mherz: I’m afraid to die.
Sheilfa: True?
Mherz: True. The reason why I’m into fistfights all the time is because I don’t want them to kill me first. If I get into a fight, I want to kill my enemy first, I don’t want to be killed by them. I am afraid to die.
(the original Tagalog transcript of the interview is posted at: http://tumbalatadavao.blogspot.com/2011/11/si-mherz-at-ang-usaping-sogi.html)
