Ray­mond Ram­char­i­tar

If there's one clear in­di­ca­tor of progress in T&T's trek to first-world sta­tus, it is the small, but grow­ing con­fi­dence and vis­i­bil­i­ty of gay peo­ple. More aware­ness and ad­vo­ca­cy groups are form­ing, and stak­ing their claims and for recog­ni­tion, rights, and their place in the sun.

A ma­te­ri­al­i­sa­tion of this move­ment was Sex­u­al­i­ties in the Tent: Crit­i­cal Sex­u­al­i­ties work­shop held at the Na­tion­al Li­brary on Ju­ly 13.

The work­shop was part of a wider pro­gramme of ac­tiv­i­ties, which in­clud­ed a four-week course at UWI, St Au­gus­tine: Crit­i­cal Sex­u­al­i­ty Stud­ies: The­o­ry and Prac­tice, taught by Prof Al­i­son Don­nell of the Uni­ver­si­ty of Read­ing in the UK. The pro­gramme was con­duct­ed un­der the aus­pices of the In­sti­tute for Gen­der and De­vel­op­ment Stud­ies of UWI, St Au­gus­tine.

The pre­sen­ta­tions at NALIS on Sat­ur­day in­clud­ed aca­d­e­m­ic re­search, cre­ative work (as in a doc­u­men­tary film), and brief in­tro­duc­tions to and from var­i­ous LBGT ad­vo­ca­cy groups in T&T and abroad.

Re­source agen­cies like the In­ter­na­tion­al Re­source Net­work (IRN) were in­tro­duced and sev­er­al mem­bers of the au­di­ence of about 50 took the op­por­tu­ni­ty to share opin­ions and per­son­al ad­vo­ca­cy ex­pe­ri­ences.

Ja­son Jones of the new group I am One, Col­in Robin­son of Coali­tion Ad­vo­cat­ing In­clu­sion of Sex­u­al Ori­en­ta­tion (CAISO), and Sharon Mot­t­ley of the Women's Cau­cus of T&T (WCTT) all gave pre­sen­ta­tions on their groups and their ac­tiv­i­ties.

Robin­son out­lined CAISO's work, which in­clud­ed at­tempt­ing to have the gov­ern­ment recog­nise the gay com­mu­ni­ty in its leg­isla­tive agen­da. The gov­ern­ment, he re­port­ed, was less than oblig­ing.

CAISO had at­tempt­ed to par­tic­i­pate in the po­lit­i­cal process dur­ing the 2010 elec­tion, but met with a less than re­cep­tive po­lit­i­cal es­tab­lish­ment.

They'd al­so hoped the new­ly-elect­ed gov­ern­ment would bring to Par­lia­ment key bits of leg­is­la­tion in its first six months in of­fice, but were dis­ap­point­ed.

Among oth­er things, the gov­ern­ment re­fused to amend the Equal Op­por­tu­ni­ties Act to in­clude sex­u­al ori­en­ta­tion as a cat­e­go­ry of dis­crim­i­na­tion. "We learned a lot about pol­i­tics," said Robin­son.

But if CAISO is rel­a­tive­ly well-known, not so well-known is WCTT, a les­bian sup­port group, one of whose founders, Sharon Mot­t­ley, in­tro­duced it.

Mot­t­ley said the group was young (though com­prised of women of all ages) and met once a month to talk. It was a slow process of for­ma­tion and self-de­f­i­n­i­tion, she said, since many women were not com­fort­able with iden­ti­fy­ing them­selves as "les­bian," but were in no doubt about their sex­u­al ori­en­ta­tion. She told of in­trigu­ing "cry­ing ses­sions," lengthy ar­gu­ments about the name and lo­go of the group, and of women who did not want to be as­so­ci­at­ed vis­i­bly, but who gave mon­ey and in­vis­i­ble sup­port.

Jones spoke of his group's ad­vo­ca­cy in train­ing po­lice of­fi­cers, the me­dia and oth­er so­cial in­sti­tu­tions to re­spond more sen­si­tive­ly to is­sues in­volv­ing gay peo­ple, like as­sault and do­mes­tic vi­o­lence.

Jones al­so re­vealed out­reach ac­tiv­i­ties like or­gan­is­ing a fam­i­ly day for mem­bers of I Am One and oth­er groups.

I Am One's main is­sue is mak­ing the gen­er­al pub­lic com­fort­able with the idea of gay peo­ple, and over­com­ing gen­er­a­tions of ho­mo­pho­bia and stereo­types. The biggest chal­lenge, Jones said, was the am­biva­lence of high-sta­tus clos­et­ed gay men, liv­ing and dead: "Every­body knew Wayne Berke­ley and (a very ma­cho now-dead po­lice­man) were gay," he said, but the stig­ma­ti­sa­tion and shame con­tin­ued while they, gay men, con­sol­i­dat­ed rep­u­ta­tions and es­teem.

A few aca­d­e­m­ic re­searchers pre­sent­ed brief ab­stracts of re­search on is­sues af­fect­ing the LBGT com­mu­ni­ty. Krys­tal Ghisyawan, a UWI post-grad­u­ate stu­dent, of­fered an en­tr�e in­to her work, which at­tempts to map the "spaces" of les­bians in T&T. She showed a se­ries of map-en­nea­grams, which il­lus­trat­ed how dif­fer­ent women de­scribed and per­ceived their lives.

Some mapped their phys­i­cal en­vi­ron­ments, as in their homes; some mapped the coun­try, de­lin­eat­ing safe and un­safe spaces; and some mapped their per­cep­tu­al ap­pre­hen­sion of their spaces.

Dur­ing the lunch break, film­mak­er Gabrielle Punch showed her 2006 short film on do­mes­tic vi­o­lence in the gay com­mu­ni­ty (in the US).

Many peo­ple were and are sur­prised to know that the gay com­mu­ni­ty is not im­mune to do­mes­tic vi­o­lence, and the biggest chal­lenge is to get the po­lice to take it se­ri­ous­ly. The film pro­vid­ed an en­tr�e in­to the more press­ing con­tem­po­rary so­cial and cul­tur­al as­pects of LBGT life. Two of these is­sues were ex­am­ined by Rosa­mond King, and Bev­er­ley Bain.

King, an as­sis­tant pro­fes­sor at Brook­lyn Col­lege, who has a forth­com­ing book on sex­u­al­i­ty and cit­i­zen­ship in the Caribbean, spoke of the treat­ment of trans­gen­der per­sons by me­dia and law in Guyana and T&T. Her re­search sug­gest­ed that gay or trans­gen­der peo­ple who main­tained the me­dia ide­al of beau­ty em­bod­ied in fair skin, straight hair, had a much bet­ter chance of be­ing ac­cept­ed.

She con­trast­ed the ex­pe­ri­ences of Trinida­di­an Jow­elle De Souza in Trinidad in 2001, and sev­er­al cross-dressers who were ar­rest­ed and pros­e­cut­ed in Guyana in 2009. De Souza, be­cause she was fair-skinned and con­formed to con­ven­tion­al no­tions of beau­ty, was sym­pa­thet­i­cal­ly treat­ed in the me­dia. How­ev­er, the dark-skinned Afro and mixed-race Guyanese trans­gen­der men were bru­talised and ridiculed by the mag­is­trate, and told to "seek Je­sus."

Con­tin­u­ing on the theme of so­cial os­tracism, Bev­er­ley Bain told of the treat­ment of the black gay com­mu­ni­ty in Toron­to's Pride pa­rade. She spoke of the black queer com­mu­ni­ty's or­gan­i­sa­tion of a "block­o­ra­ma" in Toron­to. The event was a place where gay peo­ple could come with fam­i­lies and chil­dren. As the blo­co grew in pop­u­lar­i­ty, it was pushed to the back, and on­to the mar­gins by the main­stream gay es­tab­lish­ment.

Nat­u­ral­ly with all these new and evolv­ing chal­lenges, old prob­lems, like ho­mo­pho­bia, per­sist, es­pe­cial­ly in the Caribbean. This was the theme of the pre­sen­ta­tion by Ba­hami­an aca­d­e­m­ic An­gelique Nixon of Susque­han­na Uni­ver­si­ty in the US. Nixon de­scribed an on­go­ing col­lab­o­ra­tive project on Caribbean ho­mo­pho­bia, which ex­am­ines "the many ways ho­mo­pho­bia is ex­pe­ri­enced." The project is archived on­line, and links to a va­ri­ety of aca­d­e­m­ic, cre­ative and jour­nal­is­tic work on ho­mo­pho­bia can be found on the Web site www.caribbean­ho­mop­bo­bias.org.