TO THE tattooed man in the viral video,
There are days when a country reveals its deepest contradictions, and that bathroom encounter in a mall in Davao City was one of them. In a nation battered by inflation, political uncertainty, crumbling systems, and voices begging for real solutions, it was disheartening, almost absurd, that you chose to turn your outrage toward a transgender woman quietly seeking the most basic of human needs: a moment of privacy inside a restroom.
There, in that enclosed space, you raised your voice as if delivering a prophecy. You declared her a “biological male,” as though those words alone could diminish her humanity. The tone you used, sharp and self-sure, carried the weight of someone convinced he was performing a public service, when in truth you were simply exposing your own blind spots.
The city you live in upholds the spirit of the Sogie equality advocacy and enforces the Safe Spaces Act, both designed to protect people from the kind of harassment you delivered so freely. These laws exist so that no person must shrink under the hostility of another. Yet you violated them effortlessly, unaware, or uncaring, that the dignity you tried to take from her was protected by more than just morality. It was protected by law.
What made the moment heavier was not just your anger, but how it echoed the sentiments of some women who claim that sharing a restroom with transgender women makes them feel unsafe. Their fear, often unexamined, becomes an excuse to exclude, to shame, to deny. But discomfort is not harassment, and prejudice is not protection. Women who weaponize their fear to justify discrimination should reconsider the kind of womanhood they defend, because it leaves no room for compassion, only exclusion.
The scene brings to mind the Filipino Netflix film “Flower Girl.” In it, Sue Ramirez’s character built her confidence by belittling transgender women, policing their right to enter women’s spaces. Her punishment was grim but symbolic: she lost the very body part she used to judge others. It was a narrative reminder that cruelty has a way of returning to those who nurture it, that disrespecting someone’s identity often strips something from your own.
If only such lessons were easier to swallow outside the screen.
You chose a bathroom, an ordinary corner of public life, as your battlefield, when there are entire landscapes in this country crying out for warriors. Hunger, injustice, corruption, inequality—these are the arenas where courage is needed. Yet your energy, your voice, your presence were all spent confronting a woman who simply wanted to use the restroom.
It is a sobering reflection of our times: how easily some people mobilize rage for the smallest things, while remaining silent about the issues that truly demand outrage.
What you saw as a defense of morality was nothing more than a performance, and in the end, it was yourself you revealed most clearly: a man fighting shadows while ignoring the storms outside.
Someday, perhaps, you will understand that the world is larger than your discomfort, and that respect is never lost by giving it to others, only gained.
Until then, may this moment remind all of us where our voices should truly be directed.
- Nova