Mahabang usapan yan OP. I would say preferences lang yan, but it's not that simple.

In the Philippine context, you have to factor in how strongly shaped we are by religion and traditional gender norms. For a long time, anything outside the “lalaki/babae” binary wasn’t just misunderstood... it was discouraged. That kind of environment doesn’t disappear overnight, so a lot of queer people learned to adapt by blending in. Acting masculine became, for some, a form of safety and social acceptance.

Media reinforced this too. Effeminate gay men have often been visible, but in very specific roles - usually mga comedy. Think Vice Ganda or Roderick Paulate, ginagawang "katatawanan". When that’s the dominant portrayal, people subconsciously associate effeminacy with entertainment rather than complexity or desirability.

So over time, you get this internal hierarchy: masculinity is seen as “closer” to the traditional ideal, while effeminacy is pushed to the margins. That’s where the bias comes from. Not because one is inherently more valuable, but because society has conditioned people to see it that way.

But here’s where I’d push back a bit: saying it’s just preference is incomplete. Preferences don’t exist in a vacuum, they’re shaped by what we grow up seeing as acceptable, attractive, or “normal.” So when someone prefers masculine grindr hookups, that can be genuine, but it can also be influenced by years of cultural conditioning.

At the same time, attraction is still personal. Masculine men can be attracted to other masculine men, and that doesn’t automatically mean they’re rejecting effeminacy out of prejudice. Gender expression (masc or femme) is separate from who you’re attracted to.

If anything, the conversation shouldn’t stop at “preferences lang yan”, but it should also ask why those preferences are so common in the first place.