For All Women and Girls: Shamah Silvosa Bulangis on queer feminism and community leadership in humanitarian work in the Philippines

#ForAllWomenAndGirls is a rallying call for action on the 30th anniversary of the Beijing Declaration and Platform for Action (BPfA). Shamah Silvosa Bulangis, a queer feminist activist and community organizer from the Philippines, shares how she’s creating spaces for lesbian, bisexual and queer (LBQ) women to lead, organize and thrive. As co-founder of the Visayas LBQ Network and Girls Congress, she’s elevating marginalized voices and challenging discrimination.

Now based in Dumaguete, Bulangis has spent more than a decade as an activist, beginning her advocacy work at age 14 in Surigao.

“I grew up in a very conservative, religious family. My grandparents were missionaries, pastors, heads of church; my uncles are heads of church as well, so and they would preach about, like, being gay is bad. ... How that influenced me is I actually studied the Bible in order to debunk all of [that].”

Building inclusive spaces for LBQ women and girls

From early campaigns addressing violence against women and girls to her current leadership roles supporting young queer women in the Visayas region, Bulangis’s work is grounded in a commitment to intersectionality, solidarity and justice. As a leading figure in the movement for queer women’s rights in the Philippines, she combines grass-roots activism with community organizing, creating safer and more inclusive spaces for LBQ women and girls to connect, lead and advocate for their rights.

“Pride organizations here are often led by gay men, and while they’ve done important work, LBQ women need spaces of our own,” she says.

So Bulangis and her peers came together to build a space specifically for LBQ women in the Visayas region, aiming to address not only the external discrimination they face, but also the misogyny and exclusion they sometimes experience within lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, intersex, queer and other (LGBTIQ+) spaces. At the same time, Bulangis leads Girls Congress, a young women’s leadership programme focused on addressing school-related gender-based violence and advocating for comprehensive sexuality education.

Through her leadership in the Visayas LBQ Network and Girls Congress, Bulangis has created spaces where diverse voices are welcomed and valued. Many who join have never before felt safe expressing who they are. “There’s something powerful about sitting in a circle and hearing someone say, ‘This is the first time I’ve felt like I belong,’” she explains.

Responding to disasters with collective care

When Typhoon Odette devastated her hometown of Surigao in 2021, government relief was slow to arrive. So, through the Visayas LBQ Network and other grass-roots connections, she helped coordinate immediate relief efforts, rallying queer organizations and allies from across the region to offer donations and support to families in need, including her own.This act of solidarity challenged deeply held prejudices in the community. “My grandmother, who holds very conservative views, was there when the trans community brought relief goods to our house,” Bulangis recalls. “It was a moment of realization for her. The very people she had been taught to fear or reject were the first ones to show up and help.”

Bulangis says this experience also reinforced that chosen families and queer networks are lifelines in times of crisis. “We’ve always taken care of each other because we’ve had to,” she says. “But we shouldn’t have to rely solely on ourselves. Disaster response systems need to recognize and support the ways our communities are already stepping up.”

Through the lessons learned during Typhoon Odette, Bulangis and her network are advocating for more inclusive policies that account for diverse family structures and ensure that no one is left behind.

Centring LBQ women in the fight for equality

As the world marks 30 years since the adoption of the BPfA, Bulangis calls for a renewed commitment to gender equality that fully includes all women and girls, especially those with diverse sexual orientations, gender identities and expressions. “The vision of equality is incomplete if it doesn’t centre lesbian, bisexual, queer and trans women,” she says. “We cannot be left on the margins of conversations that are supposed to be about all women.”

As the global community recommits to the promises of the BPfA, Bulangis believes it is time to ensure that no woman or girl is left behind. “We want what every woman wants,” she says. “To live with dignity. To love freely. To be safe.”