AS THE celebration of Pride Month concluded on Wednesday, the College of Law of the University of the Philippines called for reforms in the legal system to support members of the LGBTQI+ community.

In a statement, the institution said that its members, as agents of law, bear the responsibility of informing, reforming and animating the Philippines’ legal system to make it more meaningful to the LGBTQI+ community.

“The experiences of Filipino gender minorities reveal a history of repression and exclusion in the legal institutions that the majority of us never had to fight to get access to,” the statement read.

“Our experiences as children encouraged us to dream for ourselves, while our LGBTQI+ children had, and continue, to contend with norms that discourage the exploration and expression of who they were as persons,” it added.

Quoting the Supreme Court, it said that people who identify themselves other than usually accepted gender norm have suffered enough marginalization and discrimination.

UP Law pushed for rights equality so that “everyone, regardless of sexual orientation and gender identity, has full access to services, free form violence, and can found families considered valid in the eyes of the law.”

“For when we say… that our business is to teach law in the grand manner, we mean the molding of Filipino lawyers who make it their business to make the lives of LGBTQI+ Filipinos just a bit better everyday,” it said.