Celebrating Queer and Trans Asian and Pacific Islander Identities

Jethro Patalinghug (they, them, theirs)

Jethro Patalinghug is a Filipino non-binary documentary filmmaker, visual artist, and activist. They were the featured visual artist for the 2023 Oaklash Drag Festival in Oakland, California which featured their sculptural works “Disco Balling Heads”, “The Performer” and “Gabriela Rising”. Their works were also featured in the 2022 Trans Aware Art Exhibition in San Francisco. Jethro was a fellow for the 2022 Film Independent's CNN Docu-Series Intensive and DOCNY’s Storytelling Incubator. Their first short documentary film, My Revolutionary Mother, follows their personal migration story and their conflicted relationship with their political activist mother. It was named the best documentary film in the Philippines in 2015 by pinoyrebyu.com Their first feature documentary film, 50 Years of Fabulous, chronicles the 50-year LGBTQ civil rights movement through the organization The Imperial Council of San Francisco. It was the opening film at QDocs 2018 Film Festival in Portland, Oregon and an official selection to Frameline42. Jethro was also a fellow for BVAC’s National Media Maker 2016 for his documentary film #MyNameIs which follows the protest movement against Facebook’s “real” name policy in 2015 that disproportionately affected the LGBTQIA+ community, domestic abuse survivors, Native Indians and various ethnic identities. Jethro is also known as the drag persona “Virginia Please” on TikTok and teaches indigenous, black and brown queer and trans representation in media and pop culture. They serve as one of the Board of Directors for the GLBTQ+ Asian Pacific Alliance, Oaklash, and Center for Immigrant Protection.