In search of a sea route to the spice islands, Portuguese navigator Ferdinand Magellan (1480-1521) led a fleet of five ships that left Sanlucar de Barrameda, a port in Cadiz, Spain, on September 20, 1519. Three months into the expedition that lasted three years, on December 20, 1519, the Venetian chronicler, Antonio Pigafetta (1491-1534), logged the execution of Sicilian Antón Salomone by strangulation and the burning of the body after the fleet landed in Brazil.
Captain General Magellan held a trial and found Antón Salomone guilty of sodomy, a crime “against nature” punishable by death under 16th-century Spanish law. The ship Victoria’s master, Salomone, was caught in the act with Genoese apprentice sailor António Varesa off the coast of Guinea.
The younger cabin boy, Varesa, drowned after allegedly getting thrown overboard on April 27, 1520. Some accounts claimed that taunting from his fellow sailors drove him to jump, essentially committing suicide.
Asserting his iron authority over a fractious international crew, Magellan chose to hold the senior officer, Salomone, accountable. Perhaps, using him as an example, Magellan decided against Juan de Cartegena, a Spanish captain who just wanted both men punished with lashes.
Magellan, funded by the Catholic Spanish crown, was strictly enforcing a law that dated back 1,130 years earlier. It descended from Theodosius the Great, the emperor who established Christianity as the Roman Empire’s state religion. His 390 CE edict prescribed death (by public burning) to men engaged in same-sex activity. Ironically, pre-Christian Rome shared a similar socio-cultural system with the Greeks, who more than “tolerated” relationships between men.
During the Renaissance period (1300-1600), at the time of Magellan’s voyage, men engaged in sex with other men despite harsh laws. According to Jamie Gemmell in the Retrospect Journal: “In the final four decades of the fifteenth century, 17,000 Florentine men had been accused of sodomy by the Office of the Night (an institution founded to investigate homosexual relations).” Although executions were rare.
Exporting Sin to Asia
The Spaniards sent by the crown after Magellan’s death (in 1521) stayed for 333 years in what became the Philippines. Not only did they unload Theodosius’ baggage to the subjugated people of this Southeast Asian-Pacific nation, but they also weaponized evangelization to erase gender pluralism.
In 1869, some 350 years after Salomone’s execution, civil rights advocate Károly Mária Kertbeny coined the term “homosexual” to replace “sodomite.” With that, the Hungarian journalist campaigned to decriminalize sodomy in Prussia. Originally a word to describe a person committing an act, it later became a category of humans attracted to the same gender. German and Austrian psychiatrists adopted it as they “medicalized” sexuality from the 1880s onwards.
Meanwhile, Spain sold the Philippines to America in 1898. So, when Reynaldo Reyes (not his real name) came of age in the 1980s Philippines, he fell under the “homosexual” category, a type of human viewed in the West as a deviant or someone defective and in need of correction. The young Renz (Reynaldo’s preferred gender ambiguous nickname) took it upon himself to escape a fate less fatal than Salomone’s but equally damning.
Taking Matters into His Hands
Slim in stature and looking like a perpetual college student, Renz, at 62, appears confident and alert. He has been living with his partner of 25 years in a relationship he never had to conceal. Renz left his family in 1981 when he was 17 years old.
“I didn’t come out to my parents. I ran away from home before they could throw me out. I knew what was coming.” Renz said his father never confronted him about being gay because nothing sensitive like sexuality would ever be discussed in a devout Catholic household. But he read the writing on the wall. So, he methodically prepared to make his move.
“My father, who aspired to be a priest himself, wanted me to become one. That way, no one would dare question why I was still single as I got older. Essentially, he wanted me to hide my homosexuality.”
It was after that dinner conversation that Renz decided to gather the funds he needed to fly back to Manila from Puerto Princesa, the city closest to the remote town where they lived. His father relocated them to Palawan a few years earlier to develop Renz’s grandfather’s farmland. Renz planned on taking the farm money his grandfather entrusted to him.
“My father asked me to do all the lumberjack-type chores, including the job of an electrician. He wanted me to do that, instead of hiring a professional. But I’d rather be cleaning or decorating the house — the artsy stuff I enjoyed doing. And, for which I got praised by my appreciative mother, aunts, and other women around.”
Being Prepared
“I excelled in school, knowing well I had to be three times better than average to avoid being bullied as a sissy, or worse, looked down upon and relegated to gutter level gay in the pecking order. Getting good grades was some form of immunity from harassment. Way before the IT revolution, the internet or mobile phones, I read a lot and researched information on my own. I knew about the Stonewall uprising and the gay liberation movement in the U.S., as well as the progress happening in Europe in the ‘70s.”
“I had also experienced living independently before moving to Palawan. I spent the last two years of high school in Manila, on my own, because the rest of the family had already moved to the farm. I joined them there after graduation. So, I knew Manila, the capital, where I was going to live openly. I was well-equipped when I jumped ship. Knowledge was my armor.”
“I found an apartment to rent with the money I had with me. And I initially earned cash modelling nude for art students. I met them near my old High School which was close to the college of fine arts. I kept my needs and wants to the bare minimum. It was also the time when global fast-food chains started coming to the Philippines. And I quickly rose the ranks from a pioneering crew member to the night-time shift supervisor at the first international donut chain in Manila. I worked hard from 10 PM to 6 AM to put myself through college. I surrounded myself with good people at work.”
Building My Chosen Family
“I met James in college. I knew I had to empower myself through education. So, I was determined to get a degree and have a career outside my fast-food job. James and I quickly became friends – strictly friends because we were attracted to different types of men.”
“He knew that I was living alone in the city after running away from the farm. James would invite me over to his house. Eventually, James’ father offered to take me in. He provided me a place to sleep rent-free…while knowing I was gay. James was happy with the arrangement. Plus, the whole family was welcoming. I considered myself lucky.”
“Through another classmate’s invitation, James and I joined a humanist group focused on peace, active non-violence, and improving human well-being through group discussions and guided meditations. At that time, I could not resist the recruitment pitch–a chance to meet ‘good’ people, network with professionals, and improve my communication skills. I was hungry and so motivated to rise above the rest. My mentors there became lifelong friends and my new extended family. They offered me a place to rent, employment, or business opportunities at one point or another.”
Deliberate but Mindful
“I was street-smart and maybe ahead of my time. So, even as I flirted with drugs and indulged in the ‘80s nightlife –knowing I had no father-imposed curfews— still, I took very calculated risks. I kept my drug use under control after I met James and his family. I would hang out only with good people as much as possible.”
“But I had no illusions that my life would be easy. I made sure that the family I left behind could not find me. I felt ‘liberated’ from my father. But with that, I knew from the start that I would spend holidays like Christmases alone, away from loved ones. And I had no problems with that. Since I left home on my own will, I was prepared to deal with the loneliness that came with the decision. I had to be strong.”
“Whenever asked if I feared going to hell for my actions, I would always say, ‘I’ll take care of my own salvation because it’s nobody else’s business!’”
Renz thrived. He survived the pendulum swings of gender-based violence. Some 460+ years after Salomone’s execution, Renz found refuge in the family he carefully created.
