STRAP News & Events

What the f*%#, Philipine Fashion Week? (WTF PFW!!!)  
Official statement of the Society of Transsexual Women (STRAP) on the barring of transgender models to walk fashion designer Kermit Tesoro's show  

Fashion's not about looking back. It's always about looking forward. - Anna Wintour

On the evening of 24 May 2012, Thursday, transgender models were barred from walking the runway at the scheduled show of fashion designer Kermit Tesoro at the SM Mall of Asia for PFW. Tesoro, who has been showing for PFW for several seasons now, had transmodels in his line-up. He was informed, just before the show, that PFW did not want the transmodels seen on the runway. Ironically, some of the models Tesoro hired to walk his show last night have actually been walking at PFW for the last three seasons.

We, the members of the Society of Transsexual Women of the Philippines (STRAP), would like to express our deepest disappointment over this transphobic move by PFW and we say: WTF PFW? Discrimination is not fashionable especially in an industry dominated by members of the Lesbian Gay Bisexual Transgender Intersex and Queer (LGBTIQ) community. WTF PWF? After Teri Toye, Lauren Foster, Tracy Norman, Isis King and Lea T., transwomen all,who have made their mark in the fashion world as female models, this act of exclusion and oppression is so passé.

We urge the producers of PFW to have a dialogue with STRAP so we can clarify transgender needs, issues and concerns with them. We also ask them to take step to ensure that PFW does not become a hotbed of homophobic and transphobic discrimination but of genuine artistic freedom, modernity and celebration of humanity. Equality and not discrimination should be the fashion at PFW! Stop transphobia at Philippine Fashion Week! WTF PFW!!!  

Written for STRAP by Chairwoman Ms Naomi Fontanos