R-Rights in the Beginning

With the various activities R-Rights held in the last few months, we have somehow gathered a loyal following who often wondered about our beginnings. Here's sharing the vision behind Rainbow Rights Project.

"Rainbow Rights Project proposes to be an innovation to Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, and Transgendered (LGBT) advocacy in the Philippines. Instead of the usual “reactionary” nature of direct activism, R-Rights will be more “thoughtful” and will seek to be a purely intellectual endeavour. It will be geared towards knowledge production, separate from the political base of advocacy groups, and will be focused at developing ideas that will create major changes in the long run. While the Philippine LGBT Community has already succeeded in organizing the troops and galvanizing support from local LGBT members, increased visibility did not necessarily promote a singular, unified “voice” on certain matters. As such, in the midst of all the organizing, the “brains” of the movement, a long-term approach that focused on pure study was always lacking. There is a genuine, felt need for rigorous, analytical investigations of issues and an institution that will come up with quality research and unbiased reports on LGBT concerns. The idea is to come up with an academic “think tank”, a legal resource center dedicated to sexual orientation law and public policy. The vision will continue to be about eliminating discrimination and violence against LGBT members, but will utilize policy research and development, as well as legal reform, as concrete strategies to promote LGBT rights. The goal is to make daily conversations, or debates if you will, less shrill with high emotion and dramatic fervor, and instead be rational, objective, and more importantly, informed discussions on LGBT rights. It will aim to “internally” educate the ranks of the LGBT Community and to consolidate arguments and positions on different LGBT matters. As of now, no LGBT group or network has successfully organized a law-based project such as this. Similarly, no alternative lawyering NGO has established a legal resource institution devoted to this form of developmental law. Sexual Orientation law is virtually unheard of in the Philippine legal community and remains to be a vague concept among LGBT members. As such, there is clearly an unexplored territory which should be exploited to advance LGBT rights in the Philippines. For LGBT members or LGBT-friendly individuals with the proper legal training, this is also an opportunity to engage in meaningful and fulfilling legal work that will surely benefit the Filipino LGBT community."

(from the Concept Paper by Germaine in 2005)