Warning: This article contains mentions of violence and sexual abuse.

MARKOVA might not be a household name but their story is surely one of the most compelling stories in the history of the LGBTQIA+ community. 

Walterina Markova was one of the remaining Filipinos who survived World War II as a comfort gay. 

His story did not just revolve around his hardship as a slave to the Japanese soldiers but also the life of a gay man in that era, including performing for an audience, being with a macho man, ‘making love’, being a real woman, and being treated as a woman. 

Markova’s story starts with Walter Dempster Jr. Born on May 20, 1924 in Manila. While their family wasn’t wealthy, they still had more than the others as Walter’s father was an Optical Doctor. 

Walter said that his parents didn’t even blink an eye when he first came out. His older brother, Robert, on the other hand, hated the fact that he was effeminate. 

That didn’t stop him though. He continued being “malambot” and would dress himself up whenever his brother wasn’t there. However, whenever his brother caught him, he would suffer from physical abuse to ‘get the gay out of him’. 

Even his brother’s best friend sexually abused him and took his virginity one night when he was asked to bring something for his brother. He never spoke of it to Robert, fearing that he would get abused more if he knew. This was kept a secret until Robert died.

Soon after, he started dressing up as a woman and would perform dances with his five barkadas in Angeles Night Club, Subic Bay to entertain, including Japanese officers when they came to the Philippines. 

He then danced at the Tsubaki Nightclub on Mabini Street. This is when his life started to take a turn. 

Walter—who was going by the name Walterina Markova (inspired by the ballet dancer Alicia Markova) was walking around Luneta since they didn’t have customers that night when Japanese soldiers flirted with him and his friends. 

They were brought to the Luneta Hotel in separate rooms. Walterina mentioned that they were expecting that they would be just wine and dine, not that they would be ‘making love’. 

But the Japanese soldier realized that they weren’t real women. He called his co-officers and asked them to check their ‘girls’ because they weren’t real. That’s when they were all pulled up and pushed to a truck while being physically abused. 

In the Rizal Memorial Baseball Stadium, Walterina and his friends were punished by the soldiers; they would line up to be raped with bayonets in their faces so they wouldn’t be able to struggle. Walterina mentioned that it happened again and again, every day, for five months. They would be asked to move around tables and chairs, do the soldier’s laundry (specifically their underwear which was close to a sumo’s costume), and clean their rooms. 

They weren’t just sex slaves; they were actual slaves that the soldiers would physically abuse and treat as punching bags. They would be passed around different Japanese headquarters to be spent and abused with only porridge to eat. 

Finally, while they were being moved to another headquarters, the truck they were using as a transport broke down. While the soldiers were checking the engine, they jumped off the trucks and ran as fast as they could without turning back. 

Once home, the four of them (one of their barkada managed to escape earlier than them) laughed at each other’s appearances; their faces were full of dirt and their evening gowns ruined. It was one of those moments that made them breathe, thankful to be alive. 

After the encounter with the Japanese soldiers, the one who first escaped started seducing Japanese soldiers and killing them, even stealing their money and taking it home. Once their friend was caught by the soldiers, the remaining four of them moved to Batangas and danced in the provinces. 

They performed and were treated as women since people in the province didn’t know the difference between gays and women—they were just treated especially because they looked prettier than provincial females. 

But Walterina mentioned that he wasn’t for the provinces so he moved back to Manila. He was supposed to leave for America with his sisters and American stepfather, but when he saw the American men out and about in the streets in time for liberation, he decided to stay. 

He stayed to dress up as a woman again and flirt with American soldiers, this time he knew how to fool men into thinking that they were ‘making love’ to a real woman. But there was a time when Walterina was hanging out in Dewey Boulevard when he would meet young boys who would ‘make love’ to him, even with the knowledge that he wasn’t a real woman. 

He even met his first boyfriend, the son of an actor who was a real man (tunay na lalaki – men who weren’t homosexual but would have sexual interactions with gays without feelings or attraction, pure sex). 

Walterina also mentioned that people before didn’t really care about them, gays who would dress up as women, would just think that they were women and go. It didn’t matter, they knew how to look like a woman so well that no one would bat an eye. 

Eventually, Walterina stopped dressing as a woman and just wore make-up and made himself look pretty while wearing pants and a polo shirt. He worked as a makeup artist and trained women who aspired to be a japayuki (women who worked as an entertainer in Japan). 

When Walterina saw the news of Nana Rosa, a comfort woman who stepped into the light to tell her story, Walterina believed that his story should be known as well. Even with people doubting the authenticity of his stories, he didn’t care, all that matters to him is that he told the truth and it’s up to the people if they would believe it or not. 

Walterina Markova’s story is a huge part of the history of the LGBTQIA+ community, he proved that their existence was already present a long time ago. That their self-expressions were validated by society and were only tampered with by people with small minds. 

More than that, Markova’s decision to step into the light is a groundbreaking event not only for the LGBTQIA+ community but for the Filipino people to acknowledge the hardships that our country faced in the eyes of the perpetrators. 

This pride month, it is important to remember the people who risked their life to fight for their identity, it is where this generation will get the courage to continue on fighting for their own lives and rights as well.

With reports from Ashley Kristieanne Ignacio