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By Carlos Diego A. Rozul Women’s month is not only a celebration, but it’s also a time to augment the empowerment of all women. Intersectional feminism reminds us to be cognizant of the different factors that affect gender equality. These factors include ethnicity, age, socio-economic status, sexual orientation, gender identity, religion, and physical/mental ability among others. As we recognize the essential part of women in building today’s society, let us take a look at how femininity has been a part of select women’s lives. Transgender Health Officers of LoveYourself Inc., Jesse Castelo, Eda Catabas, and Yanyan Arana (L-R) Eda Catabas and Jesse Castelo are some of the newest Trans Health Officers of LoveYourself Inc. As trans women themselves, they feel right at home in their new role. Together with their teammates, they are partnering up with Decent Image of South Signal Association (DIOSSA) for an event to celebrate Women’s Month. Femininity is very important for me because I gr...

By LoveYourself Communications LoveYourself Senior Director Chris Lagman introducing Flourish Circle LoveYourself, Inc., the leading HIV advocacy group in the country, launches three innovative and timely programs on a new HIV prevention method, transgender health, and mental wellness initiatives. The advocacy group unveiled these services to further care for oneself during Spectrum: The LoveYourself Perspective event on September 11, 2019 at My Cinema in Greenbelt 3, Makati City. LoveYourself takes bold step to provide Pre-ExposureProphylaxis (PrEP) , a daily pill that helps your body prevent HIV infection by more than 90%. PrEP complements the use of condoms and lubricants to boost one's protection against HIV. LoveYourself Head of PrEP and Research Danvic Rosadi ñ o introducing  PrEPPY The implementation of PrEP Pilipinas (PrEPPY) enables Filipinos to access this prevention method around the country through its community centers and Hi-Precision Diagnostics centers. For more i...

By Francis Dimaano and Raymond Manahan Illustration of Baceria Retrieved from:  https://www.needpix.com/photo/1553464/clipart-clipart-illustration-graphic-cartoon-germs-bacteria-bacterial-virus Take self-care to the next level. The Triangle of Self Care doesn’t only apply to HIV. It’s first point, Timely Testing and Treatment is especially relevant to a vast range of Sexually Transmitted Infections (STIs). LoveYourself is now paving the wider road towards a healthier sex life as it offers STI testing, consultation, and treatment services. STI Testing The World Health Organization (WHO) recommends the use of techniques and procedures that test multiple STIs at once. This makes sure that the treatment to be prescribed completely addresses all possible infections. Clients who get tested for HIV at LoveYourself Anglo and Uni get tested for Hepatitis B and Syphilis as well. This is because these STIs have the same modes of transmission as HIV, and are also initially asympt...

The LoveYourself Community Centers have been well-known for their warm  service to all clients getting tested. As an organization, LoveYourself keeps up with maintaining the quality of its operations from counselling and decking to communications and projects. In response to the overwhelming number of clients the community centers have received recently, the schedule of operations have been adjusted to better serve its clients. You can now get tested at  LoveYourself Anglo   and   LoveYourself Uni  from Wednesdays to Saturdays 12nn to 8pm, and Sundays 9am to 2pm;  LoveYourself Welcome  on Tuesday to Friday 2pm to 10pm, and  Saturdays 9am to 5pm ;  Victoria by LoveYourself   from Saturday to Wednesday 12nn to 8pm;  LoveYourself White House  from Wednesday to Sunday 12nn to 8pm; while  Lily by LoveYourself  remains to serve Tuesday to Sunday 12nn to 9pm . More details on how to get to our community centers can be seen h...

By Nicole Silvestre Women's month is a celebration of women’s success and contribution to our society. Inclusion has been a long standing issue in the movement towards equality, and for LGBTQIA+ women it is a bigger struggle to remain visible. During dictatorship in the 1980’s, the lesbian community struggled to be visible to the public due to subsumption of their rights between women’s rights that were previously heterosexual in nature and gay movement that previously regarded them as female version of homosexual men. It is already 2019 and the same struggles can be seen happening in the trans community. Photo by Raine Cortes History of Trans Women in the Philippines Contrary to popular belief, transgender women or trans women did not just pop-up in the 20th century. Several accounts in Philippine history prove that trans women had played important roles in our society even before the Spaniards came to the Philippines. The most popular of which are the Babaylans or Visayan Shaman...

Jan Gabriel M. Castañeda If you search for “transition” on Google, it actually gives a specific definition for gender transition: to “ adopt permanently the outward or physical characteristics of the gender one identifies with, as opposed to those associated with one's birth sex .” It’s an incomplete definition, of course: it’s not just outward characteristics that change. Neither are they always the most important changes which that assume such changes happen at all: being transgender doesn’t always mean having extreme discomfort with the body you’re born with, as we’ll talk about later. But transitioning, in whatever form it takes, does mean a change that radically alters an individual. Many transgender people, very appropriately, refer to this as a “journey”. While we are talking about transgender people specifically, it’s helpful to note that every person “transitions” at many points in their lives. We transition when we grow up and take on new responsibilities. We transition w...