In Filipino mythology, the Manananggal is the ultimate self-segmenting survivor.

By night, she detaches her upper torso from her lower half, sprouts massive, bat-like wings, and flies into the dark to feed on the hearts of the living. But there’s a catch: her lower half remains stationary, rooted to the spot, utterly vulnerable.

If a hunter finds that lower half and sprinkles salt, ash or garlic on the open wound of her waist, she can never rejoin. She is trapped in the sky, a ghost of the upper atmosphere, destined to wither and turn to dust the moment the tropical sun hits her. As a trans woman living in the diaspora, I have become my own myth. I am a living, breathing architectural disaster of the soul.

The horror of the Manananggal isn’t the flight; it’s the tether.

Images: Producer: Naj Castro | Photographer & Creative Director: Ennuh Tiu | Stylist: Gelo Arucan | Make-up artist: Irish Mendiola | Hair stylist: Khen Andales | Model: Dax Carnay | Photography assistant: Joyce Romero | Location: Apotheka | With special thanks to Canon Philippines and Beau Brows by Charm Balandreau

The red threshold

Standing here, I am a pristine bride planted like a defiant weed against this graffitied red door. Navigating the streets of Poblacion brings a grounded sense to my step. The dirt, the stench, the bright neon lights keep me rooted.

This was home, and still is. Not fully, but enough to ache.

Melbourne, though aesthetically familiar in a certain light, still feels too polite. Yet in truth, I have finally reached beyond a door that most, if not all, trans Filipinos have only dreamed of reaching: to be not here. Not in Poblacion, not in Manila, not in the Philippines.

When people see my tulle and my leather gloves, they tell me how nice it must be to finally be who I am, to have a husband, to be a full-time artist, to escape this city; they have this look in their eyes as if I hold the keys to a golden city, the guardian of the red threshold.

The spectral portrait

The haze in this shot. A phantom in the frame. These streets don’t remember me like I remember them.

Flying around town in my glorious female form, detached from the realities of what the law of the land has deemed me to be, only to be speared to the ground by a boisterous bass of a voice welcoming me into the dim corners of this neighbourhood: “Welcome, sir.” Not shouted. Not violently. Casually. Like fact. Sir.

To my circles I may be a goddess ruling this land, but to my unknown subjects, I am nothing but a spectre of the night that they see right through. No matter what I do, these people and this government will never see my spiritual femininity.

There is a particular exhaustion in being split like that: one part recognised, the other denied and left standing in plain sight. Just grey matter but with black-and-white identity. They see a man.

The hysterical disruption

Capture the cackle, wrapped in sheer fabric and punctuated by a blood-red fan. Joy and amusement: the thin white veil that protected me in this land.

My booming cackle was loud enough for transphobes to shake in their boots. I was untouchable. My protection was the community I had built to survive the dread of this town. No one, no man, no law can tell me that these people are not my children and that I am not their mother.

My laughter echoes through the streets, not as an acknowledgement of circumstances but as a warning: whoever dares to steal my joy or silence me will feel my claws.

The viscera trail

My veil drags across the asphalt and over the parked trike like entrails left behind. The depth of my guts ties me to this town. My story covers every inch of it.

It’s the viscera of my identity, always leading me back no matter how high I fly in Australia. But then again, what is the truth? In my head, this place is the witness, the streets its own characters. As I am now telling this story from a distance, do the words I say even matter?

The sovereign scream

Oversized Brim Cap: AASTU.

Middle fingers up from the back of a blue trike, wearing a Bulls jersey over bridal tulle.

Fuck this place. Fuck all the security guards who call me sir, fuck all the corner ladies who giggle when I’m all dressed up and pass by, fuck the church and its archaic digression, fuck the government for denying my existence.

Fuck all the good memories I have forged in this place, fuck all the triumphs this town has witnessed. Fuck the path this place has paved for me, fuck this place for letting me be the figure to others I wish I had when I was growing up. Fuck this place for readying me to be the person I needed to become.

Fuck, I love this place. Love and rage are not opposites here; they are twins.

The sari-sari sentinel

Oversized Bow Headband & White Tulle Skirt: Olegna. Slippers: Sunnies x Islander.

Manspreading in front of the local sari-sari store in hot pink gloves and a bow bigger than my geopolitical anxieties.

This place has taught me that I was never meant to be small. Even when I attempted it. Especially then. The space I take up will always be larger than life, inherently. I will be too much, and right now, that is what the world needs. Heavy is the head that wears the bow.

If the ground can’t hold me, even if I have to split in half, I will fly.

The sampaguita saint

Draped in sampaguita garlands over a ripped rock ‘n’ roll shirt, I offer my flowers to you, Poblacion.

I am the bride and the burial. Thank you for letting me marry the vision of the woman I always wanted to be, and for interring the man this place says I am.

My spirit has survived the night, yet my body is permanently of this town. The echoes of its sounds will forever be the sonic hauntings that propel me to the sky.

The legal epitaph

“TILL DEATH DO US PART” embroidered on tulle, dragging across the rough concrete. As I head to the cold winds of the south, I have survived another haunting of a man I thought I had buried. The semantics of my sex are left on the ground. The noise has stopped for now; I am off to compose new songs to rewrite the scars.

Remember: the horror of the Manananggal isn’t the flight; it’s the tether.

In Australia, I am a woman, a citizen, a person of weight and value. In Manila, I am a fugitive from a gender I never chose, a ‘morning after’ myth surviving the patriarchy.

But I will never be whole in Australia. As long as I know my lower half hasn’t found its footing, the state thinks they have won because they hold the papers to that severed piece. They think they’ve salted the wound so thoroughly that I’ll never be truly rejoined. But they forget one thing: the Manananggal only segments because she wants to fly.

She chooses the severance because the sky is the only place large enough to hold her wings. Flight is not a curse. It is a decision. I don’t need permission to be who I am. I am the bride who never got married to the state’s expectations. I am the woman who survived the party, the heat and the salt.

If my lower half must remain in the shadows of the Makati skyscrapers, serving as a stationary monument to a deadname, so be it. I’ve already learned how to live in the air. I am hungry, I am loud, and I am flying far and wide – even if I have to leave a piece of myself behind to do it.

Dax’s acclaimed show with the TayoTayo Collective, MR BIG aka Tatay, A Transwoman and That Tiring Tune! is on at fortyfivedownstairs, 24 June to 5 July 2026.