Ka Joan: a different kind of Red fighter
Twenty-five-year-old Ka Joan is a Red fighter in a New People�s Army (NPA) platoon in the southern guerrilla front of Cagayan Valley. Like other proletarian revolutionaries, he is struggling to establish a future free from oppression and exploitation. But unlike most Red fighters, his real gender isn�t what it might first seem: Ka Joan is gay.
�I have the heart of a gay,� he openly says. �I am a gay revolutionary.�
Ka Joan hails from a peasant family in Cagayan de Oro. He left home some thirteen years ago and worked in a nightclub in Manila, first as a wardrobe aide to two dancers who practically adopted him. Later, he became the club�s floor manager.
When Ka Joan was 17, he took a vacation in a small town in Bulacan where he met a community organizer. After a few months, he quit his job to become a full-time urban poor organizer. �I thought it was necessary for me to do something for the people and my fellow gays so that they could fight for their rights.�
After several more months, Ka Joan was tasked to help organize the urban poor in a city in Cagayan Valley. �The masses there welcomed me very warmly,� he recalls. There was still no youth organization in the city, so he was tasked to start organizing the youth there. Not long afterward, they established a chapter of the Kabataang Makabayan (KM), aside from legal youth organizations.
Ka Joan entered a guerrilla front for the first time to celebrate the KM�s anniversary in November 2002. He was encouraged to return by December for the anniversary celebration of the Communist Party of the Philippines (CPP) because of the NPA�s pro-people politics and practice that he had witnessed. In the midst of invitations from comrades and stirring revolutionary songs, Ka Joan chose the life of a full-time guerrilla: �After seeing the masses� life and struggle, it became easy for me to make that decision.�
A fighter like, and unlike, any other. Ka Joan has been with the NPA for over a year now. He is their squad�s supply officer, the vice team leader, and an occasional medic. His unit actively launches tactical offensives. He has carried out his responsibilities well in these offensives and has developed his capabilities as a Red fighter.
According to Ka Joan, he has been open about his being gay since his childhood. �My family loved me very much. Even my father loved me. He always said that �no matter what his gender is, he is still my child�.�
At a young age, Ka Joan already showed how feisty he could be. �I felt hurt every time other children teased or beat up my gay friends. Even if I wasn�t the one being attacked, I�d rush to fight those who were bullying my friends.�
He would also confront adults, like the parents of his gay friends who were contemptuous of their gay children. �I would tell them that gays are also people, that though their children were gay, they deserve to be respected and loved.�
Gays in the revolution. He knows very few gays in the movement, but he also knows that this isn�t because they were being discriminated against. �It was some time before I became aware of the Party�s official stand with respect to gays. But even then, the policy was clear in the Party�s liberating practice, as comrades actively encouraged me to work as a full-time revolutionary and warmly welcomed me when I did.�
In spite of this, Ka Joan admits that there are still remnants of feudal and bourgeois outlook even within the movement. He also says that there are some male comrades who are ill at ease whenever he is around. Nevertheless, he sees the big difference in the attitude of comrades and the usual attitude of people outside the movement.
�Here, I really feel that they�re striving to accept me as I am, if they haven�t done so yet. Here, one feels that the masses and comrades really love you for being a revolutionary, whatever your gender preference. And I know that the Party and the revolutionary movement are waging a ceaseless struggle to eradicate any remnant of sexual discrimination and oppression within the movement and in society.�
The people�s army is in the process of developing practical means and regulations to promote relations among the various genders�male, female, gay and lesbian. In Ka Joan�s case, she bathes separately from the men, and of course, from the women, just as men and women not married to each other bathe separately. He is more often in the company of male comrades, but when sleeping in close quarters, he carefully makes sure that there�s a little space between him and the rest, the same way that men and women not married to each other would sleep separately.
The masses cannot help but be surprised to find out that there are gays in the people�s army. But because of the Party, people�s army and revolutionary movement�s tireless efforts in the revolutionary territories to explain policies on gender, the masses can now better understand why the NPA accepts gays and why there is no discrimination against them. According to Rey, a corn planter who mistook Ka Joan for a woman when he first met him, �He shatters the common view that gays are weak and don�t do anything else but work in beauty parlors or as entertainers.�
When asked about the future he looks forward to, Ka Joan responded: �Of course, I want people�s democracy, and we would like to proceed to socialism because only then will real liberation for the oppressed people, including gays and lesbians exist. The Party and the revolutionary movement advance the interests of all the oppressed and all of the people, regardless of gender.�
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