Butterflies in the City: Capturing the Lived Experiences of Transgender Women in Cebu City

ABSTRACT : Social movements towards transgender visibility and acceptance gained significant emphasisin the 21st century. In the Philippines, transgender women are tolerated but not fully accepted. The studyaimed to increase societal acceptance and decrease gender-based prejudice by exploring the challenges,experiences, and coping mechanism of the members of a marginalized community. Husserl‟s descriptivephenomenological design was used to capture and understand the meaning of the lived experiences ofpurposively taken four transgender women aged 21-27 years old from Cebu City, Philippines. Interviewusing a validated semi-structured interview schedule was used as the primary instrument; observation andfocus group discussion (FGD) were triangulated to obtain data saturation. Responses were transcribed,coded and analyzed using Colaizzi’s method. Six major themes emerged from the collected experiences ontransgender identity and expression, discrimination and bullying, the importance of blood relations,unrequited love and relationships, and the desire to become a woman. The lives of the transgenderparticipants can be described as transformative expression amidst challenges and external conflict. Thisresearch implies that transgender women make the conscious decision to assert and express their genderidentity in the desire to be closer to the authentic self. It is recommended that further studies would beconducted on examining the lived experiences of a transgender being in different sectors and with variedscope.

Keywords: Colaizzi, descriptive phenomenology, identity, transgender women