Spring draws to a close on a beautiful Saturday afternoon, making it the perfect time for tourists and locals to scavenge for novelty wares gracing stalls at the Blackrock Market. Above, clouds drift lazily across an endless stretch of blue as the sun shines through, providing just enough warmth to balance the chill in the crisp air. The atmosphere thrums with life, laced with peals of laughter from the little ones dragging their parents through the labyrinth-like pathways around the market.
Amidst all the hubbub is a tall woman looking around, a pair of transition glasses perched on the bridge of her nose, shielding her eyes from the sun. A light breeze dances through the strands of her long black hair, sending waves of midnight cascading down her back. She is walking through the narrow, winding passage flanked on both sides by a myriad of eclectic stalls touting handmade trinkets, antiques and a good selection of international dishes.
Her name is Jade Liu, and as far as the vendors are concerned, she is the beating heart of the market. As she passes by, the vendors turn to her like sunflowers chasing the sunlight, eager to greet her.
“Looking good today, Jade,” said Peter, his eyes sparkling.
“Hi, Peter,” she responded as she wraps her arms around him and gives him a quick hug. She asks Peter questions about his stall, Art Earth, to make sure everything is going right in his and his wife Selwa’s space.
Liu works part-time as assistant manager at the market, which is anchored in the center of Blackrock village, a picturesque coastal suburb of Dublin, Ireland. It is home to over 30 small businesses — most of them permanent, a handful of others seasonal. Part of Liu’s tasks include collecting rent from the vendors, processing service orders and helping set up the market when it opens on the weekend.
As Liu continues her way, she walks by 3 Leaves Indian Cuisine, where the aroma of spices wafts through the restaurant’s open door, enticing shoppers. She peeks inside and waves at the dark-haired woman handling the register before carrying on.
Soon, Liu reaches her destination: Mina’s Treasures, a little stall tucked away in the far corner of the market. An old woman sporting chin-length hair that frames her face sits in the entryway and observes the buzz of activity around her. She instantly lights up as soon as she realizes she has a visitor.
“Oh, Jade!” The woman exclaimed as she hurriedly stands up to envelope her in a motherly embrace: tender, warm and full of comfort.
Liu closes her eyes and reciprocates the loving gesture. “Hi, Mina,” she said, a smile spreading across her face. “I hope you’re doing good.”
It’s moments like this that Liu savors so much. In fact, some of her happiest days are when she is working at the market, surrounded by some of the people who make up the foundation of the home and new life she has built in Ireland — from her boss Gwen Thomas down to Mina’s three-legged cat Charlie Kelley.
Her life as a transwoman in Ireland life is the antithesis to the one she left behind in the Philippines, which is perceived to be LGBTQIA+ friendly. After all, it was the first country in Asia to host the first ever Pride parade in 1994.
But devotion to the Catholic faith and extreme machismo have always been woven into Filipino culture since the Spanish colonization in 1565. In the Philippines, you know about fathers beating the gay out of their sons; you overhear men unabashedly making sexual innuendos towards lesbians that some of them think they can “convert;” you read about bills protecting the rights of the LGBTQIA+ community getting shelved for decades; some of the people who were kids when such bills were introduced are fighting for them now.
Meanwhile, Ireland — despite also having a large Catholic population — was the first country to legalize same-sex marriage through a national referendum vote in 2015. That same year, the Irish government passed the Gender Recognition Act, allowing the trans community to legally change their gender.
“Filipinos still call you bakla even if you identify as a woman,” Liu said. “But here in Ireland, I always get treated as a woman.”
Bakla is the Tagalog word for a man who possesses effeminate mannerisms. Filipinos use this word like a brush to paint the LGBTQIA+ community in one broad stroke of color, despite various shades of queerness. Bakla is also used as a form of insult.
The problematic attitude that some Filipinos have toward queer people is a divergence from what was socially acceptable in pre-colonial Philippines. For the natives, sexuality and gender weren’t entwined; some men donned women’s clothing and were effeminate. Female leaders called the babaylan served as shamans, warriors and advisors to the chieftains. The babaylan welcomed effeminate men into their fold.
But the status of women and queer men steadily diminished over the centuries of Spanish rule. The Spaniards persecuted queer men and called them bayoguin, a word derived from the bamboo species called bayog, in reference to how their hips swayed when they walked. Bayoguin had slowly evolved into bakla in Tagalog-speaking regions in the Philippines through the years.
“Bakla has a history of being weaponized against the LGBTQIA+ community as a derogatory term,” Bryon Neil Senga said. Senga works as a senior programs officer at Babaylanes, a nonprofit supporting Filipino LGBTQIA+ youth. Senga added that bakla can also discredit trans women’s womanhood.
For Liu’s family, bakla is uttered from a place of affection since queerness runs in their family.
“We had always called Jade bakla even when she was little,” Liu’s older sister Kristine Kelly said. A touch of mischief touches the corners of her mouth while it curls into a smile.
“So, it’s all your fault why I turned out like this!” Liu cried amidst Kelly’s burst of laughter.
But Liu’s transition seems to have already been mapped out from the moment her mother Mary David conceived her. When David was six months pregnant, she got a sonogram to check the baby’s gender, and according to the sonographer, she was having a girl. She and her husband Jeremias started buying baby essentials in pink.
When David gave birth, a flood of confusion cut through her sedative-induced haze.
“Are you sure that’s my child?” Mary asked the nurse, warily eyeing her newborn: a boy with skin pale as frost and hair the color of corn silk. “Are you sure you didn’t switch my baby with a different one?”
The nurse assured that yes, that’s her baby; no, it’s impossible to switch babies during a cesarean section procedure.
At age 5, Liu delighted in raiding Kelly’s belongings, hunting for outfits, purses or maybe a few forgotten Barbies. She played with her mother’s lipsticks, teetered in borrowed heels, and strutted through their house like a pint-sized runway model, draped in pieces she “thrifted” from Kelly’s and David’s closets. Liu’s father indulged her by flipping through Avon catalogues and asking her what girly stuff she wanted to order.
Three months before her 7th birthday, the Philippine House of Representatives saw the filing of the Employment Non-Discrimination Bill on Jan. 26, 2000. The bill was a precursor to the SOGIE Equality Bill. Though the bill stalled, Liu’s quest for figuring out her gender identity pressed on.
Liu was in elementary when she started developing crushes on boys. She held their names close to her chest; a secret that she tucked away in a diary secured by a heart-shaped lock, where other whispered truths were hidden. She continued grappling with her sexuality all through high school. She knew she liked boys, but the attention she received from girls left her conflicted.
It wasn’t until Liu was in senior year when she finally came out as gay. Her family wasn’t surprised by her revelation because they had always known. Liu embraced her sexuality by joining a gay beauty pageant.
In 2014, the tragic murder of transwoman Jennifer Laude sent shockwaves through the Philippines, leaving a deep scar within the LGBTQIA+ community. Lance Cpl. Joseph Pemberton met Laude on a night out in Olongapo, a city located on the western coast of the Philippines. Pemberton murdered Laude after discovering she was a trans woman. Although he was charged with homicide, former Philippine President Rodrigo Duterte granted Pemberton absolute pardon. He was deported to the U.S. on September 13, 2020.
Liu said a lot of victim-blaming was directed toward Laude, even from some members of the LGBTQIA+ community. That’s why when she meets someone, she immediately discloses that she’s a transwoman to manage expectations. But she admitted that honesty can be challenging sometimes, especially when the attraction is strong and the fear of rejection — not to mention violence — comes into play.
“I always tell them, ‘If you can’t respect me as a woman, respect me as a person,’” Liu said.
As of 2021, at least 50 transgender and non-binary Filipinos have been murdered across the Philippines. This number doesn’t include unreported cases. The Filipino trans community also remains invisible when it comes discussions on healthcare, discrimination and other social issues.
“Sometimes the LGBTQIA+ community in the Philippines exhibits internalized homophobia,” said Allan Pangilinan, a queer man living in the Philippines.
Pangilinan added that most of the time, masc for masc gays antagonize cross-dressing and effeminate members of the community. Masc for masc refers to gay men who embody traditionally masculine traits and seek out the same traits in a partner.
“The masc gays often minimize the struggles of transgenders,” said Pangilinan.
Filipino LGBTQIA+ rights advocate Iko Salas echoed this sentiment, noting the irony that “hyper femme gays paved the way for what little privileges masc men and the rest of the community have right now.”
In 2016, the Filipino LGBTQIA+ community celebrated a milestone with the election of Geraldine B. Roman, the first openly transgender lawmaker. By 2020, a PEW Research Center report revealed that 73% of Filipinos supported societal acceptance of homosexuality. Eight provinces also passed anti-discrimination ordinances to protect the queer community.
But the Philippines still has a long way to go as long as the SOGIE Equality Bill remains stalled. More than two decades since its inception, the bill is still stuck in an endless loop of House approval and Senate gridlock — its fate tangled in the blurred boundaries between the church and the state.
While Liu’s hometown of Olongapo has yet to pass its own LGBTQIA+ protections, she never felt ostracized there. On the contrary, she was so well-loved that in 2010, she was elected as a member of the Sangguniang Kabataan, a youth council representing the interests of young people in the community. Presenting as a gay man during that time, Liu was still known as Jason, her dead name — the name assigned at birth that a transgender person no longer uses upon transitioning.
A familiar face in their neighborhood, Mary jokingly calls her daughter “taong kalye,” or street kid for spending most of her time with friends, often staying out late into the night. Soon, their neighbors were calling David, who was living in Ireland, to accuse Liu of drug use — an unfounded rumor that floated around because of her nocturnal escapades with her friends.
“Being far away, it was hard to do anything to keep her from being out too much,” David said. “I had friends at the police station, so sometimes I asked them to pick her up and bring her home.”
Determined to give Liu a better life, David worked tirelessly to bring her to Ireland. She helped Liu complete the application for a Lay Volunteer Visa through Camp Hill Communities, and by July 2017, Liu arrived in Ballymoney, Ireland.
At Camp Hill, Liu immersed herself in volunteer work six and a half days a week. In exchange for her labor, Camp Hill provided her with food, accommodation and a €200 monthly allowance. To an outsider, her life seemed peaceful and fulfilling as she tended gardens with other volunteers from around the world. Occasionally, Liu was tapped to help with construction work.
But it didn’t take long before tensions boiled over and scorched her. Struggling with her English skills, Liu found it difficult to communicate with staff, and the physical toll of manual labor aggravated her mitral valve prolapse, a heart condition where the mitral valve’s flaps fail to close properly with each heartbeat. The breaking point came when a staff member ordered her to iron children’s clothes. When Liu refused, the rest of the staff retaliated against her.
Six months later, Liu left Camp Hill to join her mother in Dublin. She only had half a year left on her visa, leaving her with limited work options. Liu turned to cleaning jobs that paid her in cash twice a week, keeping her livelihood under the radar.
Amidst navigating her visa and work struggles, Liu began to embrace her identity as a trans woman. She started experimenting with makeup as part of her personal awakening.
“It took me two hours to get ready,” Liu said with a laugh. “I used to wear heavy makeup with very thick eyelashes and blocky eyebrows that looked like a leech!”
Liu started wearing bras upon David’s suggestion, so she could pass as a woman. The idea struck her after she noticed people staring at Liu whenever she had makeup on, as if she was a complex puzzle that needed to be solved.
Liu, who still went by Jason, tried coming up with new names. Justine Nicole came to mind, but she felt it didn’t capture her personality, so she settled for Jay Dee in the meantime.
Liu kicked off her gender-affirming care with counseling that went over her life experiences and traumas from childhood to adulthood. It was a crucial step to determine if she was experiencing gender dysphoria. Then she met with an endocrinologist, who oversaw her hormone therapy.
According to Liu, gender affirming care is not accessible to marginalized areas in the Philippines. Because of this, some poor members of transgender population self-medicate to transition. A study published in 2023 reported that 58.9% of trans women used birth control; meanwhile, 78% of trans men injected themselves with testosterone esters.
Being on hormones was tough for Liu in the beginning, mostly because she got irritated so easily, adding more fuel to her fiery temper. Mood swings became a constant battle, leaving her on an emotional rollercoaster. But Liu adapted over time. The storms calmed, and the process, though still challenging, became a part of her new rhythm.
While transitioning, Liu ventured into the world of online dating and signed up on My Transgender Date. But what should have been a simple quest for connection often felt like navigating a lawless land — she always got ghosted or stood up. That is, until Aug. 10, 2018, when a charming man (who requested not to be named) sent her a message, asking her out. A month later, they were exclusively dating.
Liu beams as she recounts how being with this opened her eyes to a world of firsts: her first time to be wined and dined at fancy places without spending a dime; her first time to meet her boyfriend’s family and friends; her first time to be treated like an actual woman and not a fetish or an ATM.
“I used to be scared of using the women’s bathroom,” Liu said. “He encouraged me to use it. When I used it for the first time, I realized that the women in the bathroom didn’t care.”
Despite Liu’s difficult financial situation and undocumented status, the man loved and accepted everything about her. His family also treated her as one of their own. It was actually the man’s sister-in-law Ryza, a Filipina nurse, who helped Liu choose her name.
“Sis, why don’t you just go with Liu, from Jay Dee?” Ryza suggested one day.
The name had gained popularity in the Philippines in 2019, thanks to a soap opera with a lead character who had the same name.
Liu paused, her nose wrinkling in disapproval. “So, Jade David?” she mused aloud. She liked the name, but something about it paired with her last name didn’t sound quite right.
Then, she thought of using her mother’s maiden name: Liu.
Jade Liu.
And just like that, her new name sounded like a sweet melody in her ears.
In 2019, Liu began working at Blackrock Market, earning €200 in cash each week. It was also there that she found a place to call home — a small apartment nestled on top of the Asian store. Being privy to Liu’s financial struggles, her manager, Gwen Thomas, offered her a lifeline by letting her pay only half the rent in the beginning. Amid a nationwide housing crisis, Thomas’s generosity was a game-changer for Liu.
To reach Liu’s apartment, you climb nine rickety steps. When you get to the top, a pastel yellow door greets you and opens to a modest kitchen filled with items that former market vendors had donated to Liu: a simple dining table, a white open storage filled with cooking essentials, a coffeemaker sitting by the sink.
Another door to the right leads to a small living area. Here, Liu sets up a drying rack for freshly laundered clothes. On the left side of the space, a pair of red curtains sway gently in the wind. These curtains serve as “doors” to a small bedroom Liu put together for a roommate. The roof slopes down in this corner of the apartment, causing Liu’s head to brush against the ceiling, but it’s perfect for her 5-foot-tall roommate.
Liu’s own bedroom sits in the farthest corner of the apartment. She used plywood to construct walls, carving out her sacred space. A full-size bed is pushed up to the wall. Different kinds of storage occupy the room: a small closet above the headboard, open cabinets and stackable plastic shoe containers. Framed pictures line the wall across from the bed. Each photo is a testament to Liu’s transition. Her evolving hairstyle, growing longer with each photo, tells the story of her transformation to the woman she is today.
Her humble home has also provided shelter to her friends whenever they needed it, one of them being Mattie Alamo, a Filipina trans woman working as a nurse in Ireland.
“I learned the process of transitioning through Liu,” Alamo said, before adding with a cackle, “She’s a bad influence on me!”
Five years after Liu arrived in Ireland in 2017, the Irish government launched the Regularization of Long-Term Undocumented Migrants Scheme, offering a lifeline to undocumented migrants who had been in the country for four years. This was the opportunity Liu had been waiting for to fix her immigration status. The only hitch was that her first year in Ireland had been documented under the volunteer visa. In the end, Liu fell just six months short of meeting the requirement, but she still submitted her application.
Seven months later, Liu received a letter in the mail.
“I was rejected,” she said, a hint of disappointment still lingering in her voice.
The setback left Liu reeling with hopelessness. She took it as a sign that maybe, life in Ireland just wasn’t meant for her. But one of her friends told her to get with a different solicitor to file an appeal. This time, her man helped her pay the new solicitor. His family and friends also rallied together and wrote a total of 13 letters of support to attach to her appeal.
Several months passed and a new decision was mailed out on Feb. 23. Liu was working at the market that day when the postman showed up.
“I have a letter for Jason David!” The postman announced.
Liu snatched the letter from the postman’s hand, her heart racing as she sprinted back to her apartment. Her fingers shook with anticipation as she tore open the envelope, pulling out the letter with trembling hands. Her eyes scanned the page frantically, searching for the word “refused.”
But it wasn’t there.
It took a moment for Liu to understand that her appeal was approved. She had been granted a Stamp 1, allowing her six months to find work before she would have to leave the country.
Liu let out a breath she didn’t realize she had been holding. All the stress, all the uncertainty leading up to that moment — it had been worth it.
Liu now works as a caregiver at New Town Park Nursing Home, where she takes on night shifts from Monday to Thursday. On weekends, she works part-time at Blackrock Market, finding deep fulfillment in the community there, especially with people like Mina, who treats her like a daughter.
With everything falling into place just as she’d hoped, does Liu feel like she’s nearing the end of her transition?
“Hmm…” Liu paused, carefully considering her response. “I think there will always be something that feels unfinished. But I’m really excited about getting breast augmentation next January.”
She glances at her phone, and a wide smile spreads across her face. A countdown is displayed on her screen — a little reminder that brings her joy. Only 49 days left until the big day.
In the meantime, Liu continues to work, save, and embrace every moment in the country she’s come to call home.
