Manila's 'Golden Gays' sing for their supper
22 JUL 2018
Al Enriquez sheds his threadbare street vendor clothes like dead skin and develops a voguish, winking air once he slips into a gauzy gown and wig of tight blond curls.
He's 82 years old and is one of the stars in a beauty pageant for elderly and poor gay men that's about to start in a banquet hall on a rundown Manila street. But this is not a rowdy, hooting drag show for tourists -- instead it is part of the decades-long work of a collective of men like him to take care of their own.
They call themselves the Golden Gays and they mean it.
"When I'm dressed like this I feel ecstatic and I feel that I don't have any sadness in me," Enriquez told AFP. "I'm gay and I'm not embarrassed that I'm gay."
The Philippines has a reputation of openness toward homosexuality, but experts say legal protections are lacking and the nation's weak social safety net especially fails older gay people.
That's why the Golden Gays have recruited corporate and private sponsors who pay for their members to get a decent lunch and a few days' worth of groceries after the pageants they hold at least once a month.
more
https://www.afp.com/en/news/23/manilas-golden-gays-sing-their-supper-doc-17k1wa1
