Wielding Gay Men’s Agency: Empirical Evidence from HEIs in the Philippines

The school, like many other social institutions, is not immune from the far reaches of heteronormativity. To further understand and challenge such an oppressive regime, our study paid closer attention to how selected gay men wield their agency in the context of higher educational institutions (HEIs) in the Philippines. Our analysis is anchored on the assumptions of the theory of the Chordal Triad of Agency (CTA). This theory sees agency as constructed temporally (past, present, and future) through social engagements or relational contexts of action. Data were drawn from in-depth interviews with 30 self-identified gay faculty. This empirical study reveals that the critical forms of social engagement in exercising gay agency are academic, interpersonal, and public in nature. Informed by the dimensions of the CTA, the specific ways of wielding gay agency are distancing strategically and displaying masculinity (iterative dimension); dissenting intellectually (practical-evaluative dimension); and segueing lessons, transforming time stereotypes, and queering tasks (projective dimension). This article not only reveals the power of dissent, as evident in the multiple and creative ways gay agencies are wielded, but also examines the conducive role of academic freedom offered by HEIs.