Bataan 1st district Rep. Geraldine Roman has come to the defense of a fellow transwoman who recently went through a case of discrimination at a clothing store in Bonifacio Global City (BGC), Taguig City.
The victim of discrimination was Angela Marasigan, a councilor from a Batangas municipality.
“Why (did) you have to make Angela feel disrespected?” Roman, in a TikTok video, asked the staff of Zara BGC that was involved in the incident.
On the same video-sharing platform, a tearful Marasigan narrated on Oct. 19 her experience of being barred by a sales attendant from using a changing room designated for women.
Roman, chairperson of the House Committee on Women and Gender Equality in the current 19th Congress, urged her TikTok followers to spread kindness and sends a few words of encouragement to Marasigan.
In a separate post on her Facebook, Roman responded to the incident by saying that discrimination and disrespect toward anyone because of their identity shall not be tolerated.
“Ito ang dahilan kung bakit patuloy tayong naninindigan para sa pagkakapantay-pantay ng lahat anuman ang iyong pagkatao at sitwasyon sa buhay (This is the reason why we continue to stand for the equality of everyone regardless of identity and status in life),” she said.
In what seemed like a direct message to the sales attendant, Roman also said, “Babae, lalaki, bata, matanda, LGBT man o hindi, TAO tayong lahat (Woman, man, child, senior, LGBT or not, we are all HUMAN).”