I can give an answer about the Philippines. This is a topic I have discussed before in other subs, as well as in real life.

It should be noted that in the case of the Philippines, terms such as heterosexual/homosexual and gender terms are only roughly applicable since the ways in which sexuality and gender interact are rather different than the West, even in current times. For the purposes of this, the terms I use will be mostly in the Tagalog language, which is the language of the Philippines I speak and study the most.

Before I get to non-heterosexuals I will discuss gender first since the two are rather related in the Philippines. You can’t really talk about one without the other. The position of women in society in Ph in the past was one of a fairly egalitarian nature. Of course it wasn’t matriarchal (I don’t think there has ever been a truly matriarchal culture), but it’s pretty clear that it was more equal than the vast majority of other places. For example, women owned their own land, could conduct business, peace-keep between tribes, were free to commit adultery as men were, decided about whether or not she wanted children/named the children, and a woman’s virginity was not valued in the pre-colonial context. Men were generally political leaders (though there is no reason to believe that women could not be political leaders), but this was balanced by religion being the exclusive domain of women. These religious leaders are called babaylan. In the absence of the datu, or political leader, the babaylan would be the leader. If a man desired to become a babaylan, he would have to, in effect, “become” a woman. That is, he would need to dress as a woman, act as a woman, etc. This apparently included assuming their sexuality.

At this point it is easy to see how gender and sexuality in the Philippines are not separate entities. They work in tandem. In fact, this is still true in modern times. It is not uncommon to hear Filipinos in the Philippines, if speaking English, refer to a homosexual woman for example as a “boy”. This isn’t an anatomical designation. It’s the effect of translation and the fact that sexual behavior and gender are closely related. There are several different words such as lalaki (man), babae (woman), binabae, silahis, asog, binalaki, etc that are referring to both sexual practices and genders. The Philippine languages and Philippine cultures are generally more interested in describing sexual practices on their own terms than sexualities or genders, if that makes sense.

All of this is showing that, particularly in pre-colonial Philippines, gender and sexuality were rather fluid. One could choose to change sexual practices or “gender identity” without fear. It should be noted that this is more of a generalized view of the archipelago. Of course, certain societies in the islands had different norms. For example, the birth-males in parts of Mindanao were apparently severely punished for sodomy. That punishment description does come from a 17th century Spanish source, which means a couple things: for one, colonizer sources can be tricky to evaluate, and for another, at that point in time, Spain’s own brutal oppression of women and sexual minorities was in effect; that practice may not have actually been “native”.

I think this post has gotten across a general idea of how sexuality was conceptualized in pre-colonial Philippines. I think it should also be noted that (on a happy note, I guess), the Spanish and American colonizers were not successful in stamping out all of these tendencies. The area where the Western influence is most visible is that nowadays religious leaders tend to be men, as the Spanish made sure to attempt to change that aspect of the cultures. However, homosexual activity in the Philippines is seen as pretty normal and pretty acceptable, though of course it isn’t quite as “free” as before due to the conservative influences of the West. There are expectations about how people of sexualities should behave. This is changing though. Similarly, gender relations between men and women in the modern Philippines are among the most equal in the world. That is not to say that it is not a patriarchal society; but by most measures, the Philippines is more gender-equal than the vast majority of Western nations, for example. This is still trending in a positive direction too.

A wonderful, wonderful source for this is Philippine Gay Culture: Binabae to Bakla, Silahis to MSM by J. Neil Garcia. This has long been one of my very favorite academic works on the Philippines, and one I consider to pretty much be essential reading for anyone interested in learning about the cultures.