RESPECT, YES; PRIDE, YES; COMPASSION, YES; CELEBRATION, YES!

Statement of Akbayan Sen. Risa Hontiveros on Ateneans' Celebration of Pride

As an Atenean and a mother, I join my spirit and voice with the hope, strength and common good advocated by One Big Pride, an expression of charity and acceptance for the LGBTIQ+ community.

Genders are social constructs. It is both a lived and socio-cultural experience, a personal definition of oneself. Gender is not binary but comes in a spectrum. It is a lived and every day reality. Genders are part of how we are "born this way," with every basis in nature.

Homosexuality is no longer classified by the medical community as disordered. The wide range of human sexuality is part of a spectrum of emotions and acts of attraction, love and pleasure through which we human beings appreciate, reciprocate & participate in the beauty of creation.

Denying a person's God-given identity and demonizing expressions of love are harmful to us faithful, especially to our children. To deny the stigma and discrimination that LGBTQIA+ persons continue to suffer in the Philippines, and which have made the passage of the SOGIE Equality bill all the more needed, is to turn a blind eye to human suffering. To do so is contrary to the Catholic faith that bids us uphold human dignity and to love one another as He has loved us.