“I AM not a man so address me as congresswoman,” Bataan Representative-elect Geraldine Roman, the first transgender woman to be elected in Congress, said on Tuesday.
“I will file cases against those who will call me congressman,” she said.
“I am legally and anatomically female.”
Roman, 48, was among the members of the 17th Congress who attended outgoing House Speaker Feliciano Belmonte’s turnover of a bronze bust of national hero Jose Rizal and an original copy of the 1935 Constitution to the Lower House.
She vowed to support lesbian gay bisexual transgender issues, such as same-sex marriages and the proposed Anti-Discrimination Act, as a lawmaker.
Roman had sex reassignment surgery in New York when he was 26, and then had his name and gender legally changed.
Former Bataan Rep. Herminia Roman is her mother.
Roman had earlier admitted that the proposal to allow same-sex marriages in Congress would not pass even if she supported it.
“I’m just trying to be realistic here. If you want to pass same-sex marriage [legislation], you have to more or less [test] the waters in Congress,” Roman said.
“Congress is a numbers game, and if you try to pass same-sex marriage, it might not prosper. I don’t think it’s going to be passed.”
Roman said it would be more appropriate to allow “civil unions” in order not to hurt the sensibilities of Filipinos in a predominantly Catholic country.
