Bakla | EPFL Graph Search

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In the Philippines, a baklâ (Tagalog and Cebuano) (bɐkˈlaʔ), bayot (Cebuano) or agî (Hiligaynon) is a person who was assigned male at birth and has adopted a gender expression that is feminine. They are often considered a third gender. Many bakla are exclusively attracted to men and some identify as women. The polar opposite of the term in Philippine culture is tomboy (natively the lakin-on or binalaki), which refers to women with a masculine gender expression (usually, but not always, lesbian). The term is commonly incorrectly applied to trans women. Bakla are socially and economically integrated into Filipino society, having been accepted by society prior to Western colonization, many of which were held in high regard and performed the role of spiritual leaders known as babaylan, katalonan, and other shamans in pre-colonial Philippines. However, a minority group of Filipinos disapprove or reject the baklas, usually on religious grounds. The stereotype of a baklâ is a parlorista—a flamboyant, camp cross-dresser who works in a beauty salon; in reality, the bakla thrives in numerous sectors of society, from the lower to the upper levels. In modern Filipino and Cebuano, the term "baklâ" is usually used to mean either "effeminate man" or "homosexual". Martin F. Manalansan, a Filipino anthropologist, has identified two possible origins of the term. One is that it may have been a portmanteau of the words babae ("woman"), and lalaki, meaning ("man"). The other is that it is derived from the word for the pre-colonial shamaness in most Filipino ethnic groups, the babaylan. However, the word itself has been used for centuries, albeit in different contexts. In Old Tagalog, bacla meant "uncertainty" or "indecisiveness". Effeminate homosexual men were instead called binabaé ("like a woman") or bayogin (also spelled bayugin or bayoguin, "infertile"), during the Spanish colonial period. The Tagalog poet Francisco Balagtas used the word bacla in reference to "a temporary lack of resolve", as seen in his popular works Florante at Laura and Orosman at Zafira.

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Related concepts (4)

Anito

Anito, also spelled anitu, refers to ancestor spirits, nature spirits, and deities in the indigenous Philippine folk religions from the precolonial age to the present, although the term itself may have other meanings and associations depending on the Filipino ethnic group. It can also refer to carved humanoid figures, the taotao, made of wood, stone, or ivory, that represent these spirits. Anito (a term predominantly used in Luzon) is also sometimes known as diwata in certain ethnic groups (especially among Visayans).

Filipino shamans

Filipino shamans, commonly known as babaylan (also balian or katalonan, among many other names), were shamans of the various ethnic groups of the pre-colonial Philippine islands. These shamans specialized in communicating, appeasing, or harnessing the spirits of the dead and the spirits of nature. They were almost always women or feminized men (asog or bayok). They were believed to have spirit guides, by which they could contact and interact with the spirits and deities (anito or diwata) and the spirit world.

Philippine mythology

Philippine mythology is the body of stories and epics originating from, and part of, the indigenous Philippine folk religions, which include various ethnic faiths distinct from one another. Philippine mythology is incorporated from various sources, having similarities with Indonesian and Malay myths, as well as Hindu, Muslim, Shinto, Buddhist, and Christian traditions, such as the notion of heaven (kaluwalhatian, kalangitan, kamurawayan, etc.), hell (kasamaan, sulad, etc.), and the human soul (kaluluwa, kaulolan, makatu, ginokud, etc.