[4] The polar opposite of the term in Philippine culture is tomboy (natively the lakin-on or binalaki), which refers to women with a masculine gender expression (usually, but not always, lesbian).

In modern times, a minority group of Filipinos disapprove or reject the baklas, usually on religious grounds allegedly from Christian or Muslim beliefs.

The stereotype of a baklâ is a parlorista—a flamboyant, camp cross-dresser who works in a beauty salon; in reality, the bakla thrives in numerous sectors of society, from the lower to the upper levels.

[12] Effeminate homosexual men were instead called binabaé ("like a woman") or bayogin (also spelled bayugin or bayoguin, "infertile"), during the Spanish colonial period.

[14] The Tagalog poet Francisco Balagtas used the word bacla in reference to "a temporary lack of resolve", as seen in his popular works Florante at Laura and Orosman at Zafira.

This includes feminine mannerisms and speech, use of make-up, cross-dressing, and long hairstyles; all are referred to with the umbrella term kabaklaán (effeminacy).

However, due to increasing globalization and influence from the Western categories of sexual orientation, baklâ has become incorrectly equated with the gay identity and used generally for homosexual men, regardless of the individual's masculinity or femininity in presentation.

"[17][27] Like in English, the term tomboy (archaic lakin-on or binalaki) refers to masculine (usually lesbian) women, and is understood as the polar opposite of the baklâ.

This is largely due to the absence of modern local terms for transgender people, as well as the general public ignorance of the differences between homosexuality and transsexuality.

[9] According to Filipino academic J. Neil Garcia, the baklâ would fall under the inversion pattern of homosexuality identified by American psychobiologist James D. Weinrich.

[37] Generally, these effeminate men were known as bayog (also bayok or bayogin; spelled bayoc or bayoquin in Spanish) in Luzon, and asog in the Visayas islands, both with meanings denoting "infertility" or "impotence".

[40] Due to their association to the feminine, they were regarded as having greater powers of intercession with the anito (ancestral and nature spirits) and thus commonly became shamans (babaylan, a traditionally female role in Philippine cultures).

His female counterpart, called a baliana, assisted him and led women in singing the soraki in honor of Gugurang, the supreme deity of Bikol mythology.

[40] During the three centuries of Spanish colonization (1565–1898), the Catholic Church introduced harsh measures to suppress both female and asog shamans.

During the 17th to 18th centuries, Spanish administrators in the Philippines burned people convicted of homosexual relations at the stake and confiscated their possessions, in accordance to a decree by the president of the Real Audiencia, Pedro Hurtado Desquibel.

[17][52] Despite this, the colonization of the Philippines did not fully erase the traditional equivocal views of Filipinos with regards to queer and liminal sexual and gender identities.

It is used by both masculine and feminine baklâs and incorporates elements from Filipino, Philippine English and Spanish, spoken with a hyper-feminised inflection.

It is commonly perceived as a positive self-identification, and various prominent local celebrities (like Maricel Soriano and Rufa Mae Quinto) openly identify as babaeng bakla.

[57][58] Since independence, noncommercial, homosexual relations between two adults in private have never been criminalized in the Philippines, although sexual conduct or affection that occurs in public may be subject to the "grave scandal" prohibition in Article 200 of the Revised Penal Code (though this is applied to everyone, not only LGBTQ people).

[59] In December 2004, it was reported that Marawi City had issued an ordinance banning bakla from going out in public wearing female attire, makeup, earrings "or other ornaments to express their inclinations for femininity".

The ordinance passed by the Marawi City Council also bans skintight blue jeans, tube tops and other skimpy attire.

The ordinance is possible because Marawi was part of the Autonomous Region in Muslim Mindanao (now the Bangsamoro), which allows separate civil laws (based on the Sharia) from the rest of the country, as long as they do not violate the Philippine Constitution.

[65] Various Evangelical churches and the Iglesia ni Cristo are more fundamentalist in doctrine, and thus strongly condemn homosexual acts and suppress such identities within their congregations.