COPENHAGEN, DENMARK — The Philippine flag was proudly waved at the recently concluded Copenhagen 2021 – WorldPride & EuroGames which ran from August 12-22 in Copenhagen and Malmö.
Dubbed as the biggest PRIDE event in the world, Copenhagen 2021 is the most significant LGBTI+ event of the year, combining WorldPride, EuroGames, an eclectic arts and culture program, and a historic LGBTI+ human rights forum.
Leading the opening of the 3-day Human Rights Conference was HRH Crown Princess Mary of Denmark along with Human Rights Director Aron Le Fevr and UN Special Rapporteur on SOGI, Victor Madrigal-Borloz. With over 250 human rights activists invited from all over the world, and Rhadem Musawah as sole representative of the Philippines bringing Mindanao LGBT into the map of the LGBT Movement.
Rhadem is an indigeneuous filmmaker and human rights activist in the south of the Philippines. He brings into the spotlight the unsung stories of the indigenous and Muslim LGBTI+, voices that are rarely heard in the LGBT movement in the country.
His film, “Budjang” was also screened twice during the weeklong event, one at the Democracy Festival in Copenhagen and the other is by members of the Filipino community headed by Philippine Ambassador to Denmark, Ambassador Leo Herrera Lim, and by members of the international diplomatic corps.
“‘Budjang’ is a story of a transgender Muslim woman in Zamboanga City and talks about the struggles and aspirations of the voices that are seldom heard, even within the LGBT movement in the Phiippines,” tells Musawah. “It also shows how the LGBT community fought for the passage of anti discrimantion ordinance in Zamboanga City through genuine allyship and community engagements, which was crucial as violence against the community was so rampant at that time, especially during the pandemic.”
For Rhadem, representation truly matters. For the first time, Mindanao have reached a landmark success by being included in Copenhagen 2021 and is able to share stories of indigeneous and Muslim LGBTI+ Filipinos in a global space. He hopes that it will help bring focus on the issues of the intersecting marginalization within the LGBT community in the Philippines, especially in a time when human rights violations are done right in front of our very own eyes.
“Genuine and inclusive equality should be a movement where nobody is left behind. This is the time when members of the LGBT who are Muslims and indigenous are given a voice,” he adds.
Rhadem, who is also a Thomson Reuters Foundation alumni under its Changemaker Program, is quite the busy body. Not only is he a creative officer for the MUJER LGBT Organization, he is also a core member of Vote Pilipinas which is the Philippines’ Commission on Elections’ official voters education campaign partner.
Now, with Vote Pilipinas and MUJER LGBT, Rhadem is shifting the discourse from protecting the gender abused community to empowering the community in reclaiming their rights to exist by registering and casting their votes to change the leadership in the coming national election next year.
