Better to watch it in HQ.
Warmly, Sass

Assemblée Nationale, PARIS, 15 May 2009

[Here’s the speech I presented during the Panel 1 of the Round Table 4 (Human Rights & Gender Identity) of the World Congress on Human Rights, Sexual Orientation, and Gender Identity. I rarely write my speeches as I often lose my passion whenever I read a written statement. I prefer to just follow an outline and let every word breathe from moment to moment as they come.

The time allotted for our panel was cut short by the late start of the Congress; hence, there was not much dialogue that happened during our panel. Fetching from memory, here’s the content of my speech.]

Good afternoon to each and every one of you. Let me first start by thanking the French, Norwegian, and Dutch Governments for organizing this monumental event. My name is Sass Rogando Sasot. I’ve been a transgender activist since I was 19 years old and I’m one of the founding members of the Society of Transsexual Women of the Philippines or STRAP, the first and - so far – only transgender organization in my country. My presentation this afternoon is divided into five parts. The first two is about a general view of transphobia and the rest is about how transphobia is experienced by transgender people in my country.
( continue )

to Paris for a few days. :-)

Love is a terrifying Thing.
When its splendor whispers the chill of its warmth
we dissolve into strands of light.
And we understand that the nights of our lives
are just moments of a more intimate sunrise.

If what we are is but a dream,
love is our dreamer.
When it awakes,
we are its reality.
It fetches to our hourglasses
the grains of bliss;
It fills our emptiness
the flow of totality.

And we realize a Thing frightening
to our numb existence:
Our hearts never break
but open up
whenever there's goodbye.

a certain moaning
luminates your spine
with a glow
of a red
cloud at sundown
rising like steam
your body lifts
to the crest
of a mountain
in deep trance
from your toes
a cantering spiral
tickles your neck
your jaw trembles
your cheeks ripe
warmth conquered you
your eyes shut
to everything but
to your ecstasy
my tongue strokes
your volcanic reveries
then you erupt
those undulating rhymes
your navel articulates
your every ahs
into spastic verses
and i swallow
everything that flows

[c]sass

Even if the wall of goodbye is now in place
When memory starts to play the laughter we once shared
A rain stick still shuffles in my chest

i will paint my heart in a beating canvas
it will be plain and simple, as if painted by a child
but will be life-size, just right for your wall

Adam,
I'm not offering you any fruit,
just my hand.
I want to dance with you
for I have seen:
The way back to your heart
is the way back to my heart.

LOVE, spark of wakefulness,
stretch every beat of my being
into a white surrender to the Infinite Gape

stir my conditionless Yes
to the downpour
of creative currents
to the touch
of the unknown call
to the fleeting shapes
of the clouds of time
to the dusk
of nameless nights
where stars rise
pulsating a pure sparkle
wildly as a rebel's roar
yet tenderly as a morning mist
( continue reading )

We are palms of hands meeting in prayer
Thumbs aligning as bodies turn to lotuses
Lips lost in each other's gaze
We are what napes set free in every bow
Between us is a solemn togetherness
The blindness of love: A sense more profound than sight
For love is the gathering of the senses
Love feels, tastes, scents, sees,
Love listens, luminously

A warm nest where tears can finally hatch
a horizon, please
I'm quite dizzy right now to walk
What's beneath my feet
crashes

I am falling in the haystack of
masks, as if I'm peeling
an onion -- afterwards:
swollen eyes, a sodden smile,
and a dripping heart.

A warm nest where tears can finally hatch
a horizon, please
a horizon,
please…

(sass)

...one of these days these shoes are gonna be thrown all over you!

And one of these days, stilettos will be the new Molotov cocktail. And one of these days, invitations to political functions and events will read: COME BAREFOOTED.

First: "This is a farewell kiss, dog"
Shoed George W. Bush
in Baghdad



( continue )

For those of you who have friends studying at the Ateneo Law School please invite them to attend this event. It's on 13 February, Thursday, at 3 PM. To pre-register and for exact venue please contact Sam Davis at 0917.803.08.01.

From Genderfull to Genderless:
changing, moving across, and transcending gender

Change, Across, and Beyond…three words that aptly sum up the transgender experience. An experience of a monumental Change, of a courageous movement Across a non-existent boundary, of a radical embrace of that mysterious and charming Beyond. Beyond cultural and traditional conventions, beyond legal impositions, out of the box of our limited perception, brave creatures dance to the tune of their own music, unsettling established definitions, images, and interpretations of what it means to be human. Join this conversation. Let's unfold, you and I: Dance!

About the speaker:
sass rogando sasot is an art project in progress who happened to be one of the founding members of the Society of Transsexual Women of the Philippines (STRAP). And since the age of 19, Sass has been invited to discuss transgender advocacy and experience here and abroad. S/he looks forward to that moment when relating flows not from man to man, woman to woman, or man to woman but from one human being to another human being.

“This paper is a crane
when its wings unfold
it will be pure and empty”
- Marjorie Evasco, Origami


Whenever I look at you I do not see you. I see an origami of your age, your job,
your class, your gender, your sexual orientation, your race, your nationality, your religion,
your beliefs, your thoughts, your past, your future; labels upon labels, conditionings upon conditionings, time upon time.

To look at you is not to be with you but to relate with the images, ideals, and impressions I have made of you.

To look at you is not to interact with you but to interpret you, sizing you up, fitting you in a category, molding you after my thoughts, turning you into an object of my interest, comparing you to my standards, breaking you into analyzable parts, transforming you into something compatible with my beliefs.
( continue )

I.

the silence of the mirror
reflects what's beyond this flesh:
an empty shore where thoughts cannot walk.

what i am is just a mere wave,
flirting with the winds of consequence and chance,
dissolving as it reunites
with the emptiness of this shore.

II.

the silence of the mirror
reveals a secret devastating to desire:
between you and me is not separation but distance.

whenever we let each other's solitude be,
we meet beyond our desires;
we embroider space the braille of poetry
blind inspiration reads to our hearts.
( continue )

Click picture to enter gallery!

doubt, where were you
to stop a violent dream
from stealing his smile

uncertainty, what made you
skip this instance
and let certainty rule
this game of chance

forgive me, my tears
refused to flow outwards
for this is not the death
my mortal tears can recognize,
can appease, can heal
for this is not the death,
not the death
anybody deserves to die

...and the flowers sighed
where was compassion
when it was needed most?
asleep in the darkness
of someone's heartless night?

yet we know, there you are
and will be, our dear friend,
living eternally afloat, awakened
as a star throbbing
in the pure emptiness of light

(Manila | 3 Dec 2008)

in your streets,
in those coy smiles,
as your tranquil skies
embraced my eyes,
i heard Steinarr whisper
that in the melting of the snow
"Það er sólskin og hiti (there's sunshine and warmth)"

no matter how you're bruised
your fresh breath
shall awaken once again
as the tower of light
extending from your land
undressing the wilderness
of the night

you burnt my heart
and there's nothing i can do
but beat the flame, o dear,
you are so beautiful
i had to weep my goodbye -
bless for the moment

(Reykjavik, 23 November 2008)

would like to say:
I fell in love with Stockholm BUT
Reykjavik must be love...

i shall remember you
just how the trees remember Spring
as they sleep in Winter:
gently, silently, patiently,

awaiting to blossom
as the lush that never fails
to inspire our sleeping hearts
to awaken and burn

ardent as the Summer's day
our hands held
Autumn painted our eyes
the golden dream
our lips caught together

(stockholm, 10 nov 2008)

Arrived in Stockholm...and
i fell in love with it immediately... :-))))))

bringing her laptop,
her poems, her school textbooks,
her smile, her warmth,
her body, her spirit,
her charm, and her wit
to the winter of EUROPE
on 2 November.


(no this isn't yet goodbye
Philippines forever...just having a
taste of Europe at season when people
would like to leave it for the Philippines!)

*thank you my fairy godmothers...
you always sprinkle me with your fairy dusts!!!

Part 1 : The Astronomer

lost among
impersonal city lights,
neon lights blinding life

the gaze of the astronomer within
drowns
for what else remains in the sky
but hearts clenched
by a laminating glance

hands are raised as fists
and not as salutation
to the sun
( continue )

These times when
outside runs, raging
like flapping tongues of flame, darting
as strands of penetrating chill, rising
as waves of despair, anger, and fear,

vulnerable forms tremble like falling leaves
sickled from their twigs by a swift autumn's whisper.
Yet this turmoil, this crunch, and this collapse
can be angels in wolves' clothing,
messengers of the sharp, bright light, shining
( continue )

Schedule: Gateway Cinema Mall (The Amazing Truth About Queen Raquela)

Oct 20, monday, 8pm cinema 1
oct 21, tuesday 11am, cinema4

i woke up to a chill
intimately intertwined with my bones
the walls of my room were shaking
i laid as a stain of pain, blemishing
the bedsheets with my damp eyes
i felt tired but
enthusiastic to inhale burning charcoal until
nights ascend from it
as fragile wisps of dread

i no longer can't deny:
the clock's face has no smile, just hands
juggling dysphoria and euphoria -
the fraternal twins pushing and pulling
the swing hanging stationary
in this lucid interval

how i long to laugh
laughter that is well

Someone asked me:
Is it possible for "me" to love anyone?
Can I "give" love?
Is it possible for "someone"
to love you at all?

Using this dear little self as the laboratory,
here I share my reflections as I look into this, deeply
and with a courageous sense of intense inquiry:

I see that in “giving or receiving” love
there is a separation among the giver,
what’s being given, and the receiver.
But this separation is the very negation
of love.

Love is this unity. I cannot give nor receive this unity.
For me to say that I can give or receive
this unity of which I’m but a part is nothing
but the romantic arrogance of the mouth
which only speaks about love
but can never speak the language
of love.
( continue reading )

[c] sass