Where Drag Can Land You Behind Bars — and Worse
thegavoice.comEditor’s note: The author intentionally uses “Filipine” in reference to Pura Luka Vega instead of the more commonly used “Filipino” because it is more neutral than the Spanish masculine “-o.” Are there places on this globe of ours where drag performance has been rendered effectively illegal?
Where television offers drag franchise competitions, but drag performance outside screens is criminalized? One might ask Pura Luka Vega (PLV), a Filipine national who ran afoul of the high-strung and powerful “Religious Reich” entrenched in the Philippines.
By the time the U.S. booted out the Spaniards following the Spanish-American War, Catholicism was firmly entrenched. In fact, in 2020’s national census, 78.8 percent of the population reported themselves Roman Catholic, with another five percent other Christian.
How did this nonbinary drag entertainer, born Amadeus Fernando Pagente in 1990, commit a heinous, jailable crime that brought the swiftest opprobrium?
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