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Tuesday, February 25, 2025

Gay in T&T: The struggles against discrimination

by

20120330

Part I

Gay. Les­bian. Bi­sex­u­al. Trans­gen­der. We know what these words mean, even when some of us may not agree with what they stand for. Al­though con­sid­ered a mi­nor­i­ty, the men and women of the LGBT com­mu­ni­ty are def­i­nite­ly present in Trinidad and To­ba­go, and some say they are mov­ing to the front of our so­cial con­scious­ness.

A per­son like Kevin "Saucy Pow" Dar­ling­ton is what many peo­ple think of when they think of the word "ho­mo­sex­u­al" or "gay." His T-shirt's neck­line dips be­low his pec­torals, giv­ing the il­lu­sion of cleav­age. Fab­u­lous, colour­ful neck­laces adorn his neck; high-heeled boots are on his feet. The way he sips tea is al­most la­dy­like. Dar­ling­ton is a trans­gen­der man, a for­mer gay pros­ti­tute and a "dancer" at places in St James and Mara­cas Beach.

But he's not any­one's poster boy for the LGBT com­mu­ni­ty; peo­ple who are gay are much more var­ied than some of us would think. He list­ed the types of clients he would en­ter­tain when he "made fares" (was a pros­ti­tute) on Mur­ray Street."Num­ber one is po­lice. Num­ber two is Coast Guard. Num­ber three is gang­sters. And num­ber four is ras­tas. All who have nice cars...Them does lock up they wife and come Mur­ray Street and make fares," Dar­ling­ton said.

It's im­pos­si­ble to es­ti­mate how many peo­ple are in the les­bian, gay, bi­sex­u­al and trans­gen­der com­mu­ni­ty (LGBT) in Trinidad and To­ba­go, or any­where else in the world. Fly­ing un­der the radar is a de­lib­er­ate choice, be­cause be­ing open about their sex­u­al­i­ty means they may be sub­ject­ed to a wide range of dis­crim­i­na­to­ry acts, from de­ri­sive laugh­ter to vi­o­lence.

Be­ing gay=back­lash

In 2011, Dar­ling­ton was stabbed sev­er­al times by un­known at­tack­ers out­side a Port-of-Spain bar, and re­ceived al­most no as­sis­tance from passers­by as he lay bleed­ing on the pave­ment. The treat­ment he's ex­pe­ri­enced sounds in­hu­mane. But the truth is that many peo­ple act as though ba­sic per­son­al free­doms should not be ex­tend­ed to those with al­ter­na­tive lifestyles.

There are al­so le­gal rea­sons why the LGBT com­mu­ni­ty fears a back­lash if they're open about their sex­u­al pref­er­ences. The Sex­u­al Of­fences Act makes bug­gery il­le­gal; the Im­mi­gra­tion Act lists ho­mo­sex­u­als among the class­es of peo­ple not al­lowed to en­ter this coun­try; and the Equal Op­por­tu­ni­ties Act does not pro­tect cit­i­zens from dis­crim­i­na­tion on the ba­sis of sex­u­al ori­en­ta­tion.

How­ev­er, Prime Min­is­ter Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar has gone on record as say­ing that the bug­gery law is not en­forced. Con­sul­ta­tions on a Na­tion­al Gen­der Pol­i­cy are now un­der­way, and have in­clud­ed a wide range of in­ter­est groups, from faith-based or­gan­i­sa­tions to the Coali­tion for the In­clu­sion of Sex­u­al Ori­en­ta­tion (CAISO).

Col­in Robin­son, CAISO's ex­ec­u­tive di­rec­tor, cam­paigns for the recog­ni­tion of "sex­u­al cit­i­zen­ship and gen­der jus­tice". He be­lieves there's a need for leg­is­la­tion that recog­nis­es that al­ter­na­tive sex­u­al ori­en­ta­tion is grounds for state pro­tec­tion. "Vi­o­lence is re­al in Trinidad and To­ba­go. Some peo­ple de­cide that if they don't like what you look like, or how you walk­ing down the road, or who they think you sleep­ing with, they could beat you," he ex­plained.

An open­ly gay man him­self, Robin­son said CAISO has been en­gag­ing in dis­cus­sions with past and present ad­min­is­tra­tions on pol­i­cy changes. Re­cent­ly he at­tend­ed a Uni­ver­sal Pe­ri­od­ic Re­view held by the UN Hu­man Rights Coun­cil, and re­port­ed that the Gov­ern­ment has re-com­mit­ted to pro­tect the rights of all cit­i­zens, in­clud­ing gays and peo­ple liv­ing with HIV.

But one of the next steps, he said, should be a hard look at why bug­gery laws de­rived from faith-based moral codes are still on the books. "We don't have laws that say you have to make pu­ja. We don't have laws that say you have to wear hi­jab. So we shouldn't have laws that say you can and can't have sex with peo­ple in pri­vate."

Born this way?

Some say the LGBT com­mu­ni­ty is get­ting larg­er; oth­ers say it is sim­ply be­com­ing more vis­i­ble. And through or­gan­i­sa­tions like CAISO and well co-or­di­nat­ed events, LGBT peo­ple now know where they can find the in­valu­able sup­port that on­ly oth­er mem­bers of the com­mu­ni­ty can of­fer.

"Gay cul­ture is ac­tu­al­ly kick­ing off in T&T. You would see drag queens walk­ing the streets like nor­mal. At one point, gay peo­ple would be afraid to walk the streets be­cause they go get bot­tle or stone," said Aidan (not his re­al name), a 24-year-old man. "They're not afraid any more."

Car­ni­val is a ma­jor plat­form for in­creas­ing LBGT vis­i­bil­i­ty, Robin­son said, when the wider so­ci­ety gets a chance to un­der­stand that gay peo­ple are hu­man too. "How things changed in the glob­al north is be­cause [gay] peo­ple be­came vis­i­ble, not nec­es­sar­i­ly pub­licly, but they talked to their fam­i­ly mem­bers, their co-work­ers. And so you hu­man­ise what it means to be 'queer'," he added.

Be­ing con­sid­ered "queer" is nor­mal for Dar­ling­ton: peo­ple reg­u­lar­ly point, stare and call him names on the street. But there's more to him than his vi­va­cious per­sona. He claims to have been re­peat­ed­ly raped, along with oth­er boys, while liv­ing in an or­phan­age.

That was just the be­gin­ning of years of sex­u­al, phys­i­cal and emo­tion­al abuse Dar­ling­ton said he's en­dured. His abuser al­so left him HIV-pos­i­tive. Dar­ling­ton says his at­trac­tion to men be­gan af­ter the abuse. Many gay and les­bian peo­ple, how­ev­er, dis­agree with the no­tion that trau­mat­ic child­hood events or dys­func­tion have made them ho­mo­sex­u­al.

Some re­li­gious per­spec­tives on ho­mo­sex­u­al­i­ty dif­fer. "We ac­knowl­edge that peo­ple will have a ten­den­cy to­ward be­ing gay or les­bian," said Leela Ramdeen, chair of the Catholic Com­mis­sion on So­cial Jus­tice. "That it­self is not a sin in the view of the Catholic Church. What be­comes a sin is when you act on it. Catholics be­lieve in ob­jec­tive moral­i­ty. We be­lieve that God de­signed us like this [het­ero­sex­u­al]."

The Rev Ethel­bert Charles, spokesman for the Trinidad dis­trict of the Pen­te­costal As­sem­blies of the West In­dies, agrees. "I be­lieve with all my heart that if [gays] con­tin­ue in that lifestyle, un­con­fessed, no con­fess­ing to the Lord for their sins to be for­giv­en, and they die in that state, they will def­i­nite­ly split hell wide open," he said.

In re­sponse to a re­quest by Guardian Me­dia re­porters, the An­ju­man Sun­nat-Ul-Ja­maat (AS­JA) is­sued a let­ter writ­ten by its first vice-pres­i­dent Ka­mal Ho­sein. Al­though it does not ex­plic­it­ly state AS­JA's po­si­tion on ho­mo­sex­u­al­i­ty, that can be in­ferred.

"Through the Aids epi­dem­ic, mil­lions have al­ready per­ished in the dis­as­trous path of phys­i­cal dis­in­te­gra­tion which em­anates from sodomy and the com­pelling urge for the un­nat­ur­al-God For­bid."

Sat­narayan Ma­haraj, sec­re­tary gen­er­al of the Sanatan Dhar­ma Ma­ha Sab­ha, said gays have al­ways ex­ist­ed in Hin­duism. And though it goes against the nat­ur­al or­der that is a part of the Hin­du faith, he said, Hin­dus should not dis­crim­i­nate against gays, be­cause they were born that way: "Not be­cause na­ture has some­how passed [a male ho­mo­sex­u­al] by as a male hu­man be­ing must we as hu­man be­ings set him aside al­so. He is part of the so­ci­ety. But it is a sex­u­al de­for­mi­ty."

In­stead of heal­ing, some gays be­lieve, re­li­gion has been a source of fur­ther dam­age. A lot of gay peo­ple can­not rec­on­cile faith and their sex­u­al­i­ty, Robin­son said.

No longer ...

The de­bate about whether or not al­ter­na­tive lifestyles are a choice or as nat­ur­al as breath­ing has al­ways stirred up con­tro­ver­sy. Es­pe­cial­ly when peo­ple like Janes­sa McK­ell say they were once gay. Now she's not, she said. "My ex­pe­ri­ences have helped me to see that deep trans­for­ma­tion is pos­si­ble-not just a sur­face mask (while) in­side you're still bat­tling with stuff. Trans­for­ma­tion is pos­si­ble."

McK­ell was born in­to Ro­man Catholi­cism, but even­tu­al­ly re­lin­quished her faith to the strong feel­ings she ex­pe­ri­enced as a teen: "It was very re­al," she said. But through a spir­i­tu­al en­counter with Christ, she says, she stopped all ho­mo­sex­u­al ac­tiv­i­ty over five years ago and now con­sid­ers her­self het­ero­sex­u­al.

"I did not have coun­selling, al­though coun­selling is def­i­nite­ly good. There is no ide­al so­lu­tion. But the be­gin­ning of the so­lu­tion is Christ." Pas­tor Philip Lee is the founder and ex­ec­u­tive di­rec­tor of His Way Out Min­istries in Cal­i­for­nia. He spent part of his life-17 years-as a gay man. He says change is def­i­nite­ly pos­si­ble un­der cer­tain con­di­tions.

"I know of no in­di­vid­ual, my­self in­clud­ed, male or fe­male, world­wide, who has left a gay-iden­ti­fied lifestyle apart from a re­la­tion­ship with Je­sus Christ," Lee ex­plained. He says be­ing gay is learned be­hav­iour with nu­mer­ous con­tribut­ing fac­tors. Pro-gay ad­vo­cates have no sci­en­tif­ic stud­ies to back up their claims about the "gay gene," Lee said.

Lee is in Trinidad to equip pas­tors and oth­er faith lead­ers to "help" peo­ple who ex­pe­ri­ence same-sex at­trac­tion but want out. It's clear that ho­mo­sex­u­al­i­ty, and the peo­ple af­fect­ed by it, no longer hide com­fort­ably in any­one's clos­et. Those clos­est to the is­sue are urg­ing our so­ci­ety to deal with it.

"We're a plur­al na­tion. We're a na­tion that has to grap­ple with all kinds of dif­fer­ence," Robin­son said. "And clear­ly to en­act that, you have to deal with sex­u­al-agen­da di­ver­si­ty." "Every­body has come through life dif­fer­ent­ly," McK­ell said, chal­leng­ing those faith prac­ti­tion­ers who would lump to­geth­er and con­demn all ho­mo­sex­u­als. "You can't cas­ti­gate a group with­out know­ing each of those peo­ple. God doesn't see is­sues. He didn't see me as 'Janes­sa the les­bian.' He just saw Janes­sa."


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