Gail Alexan­der

Out­law age, HIV and sex­u­al dis­crim­i­na­tion! That's the mes­sage to leg­is­la­tors which T&T's gay com­mu­ni­ty will "pa­rade" through Port-of-Spain to­day when they will stage their sec­ond an­nu­al com­mem­o­ra­tive walk against ho­mo­pho­bia and trans­pho­bia. The walk will par­tic­u­lar­ly urge Equal Op­por­tu­ni­ty Com­mis­sion (EOC) mem­bers and par­lia­men­tar­i­ans to out­law age, HIV and sex­u­al-ori­en­ta­tion dis­crim­i­na­tion. "The goal of the walk is to raise aware­ness about and to urge de­ci­sion-mak­ers to en­sure every­one is treat­ed equal­ly and giv­en the same hu­man rights pro­tec­tions as oth­er cit­i­zens," says Col­in Robin­son, ex­ec­u­tive di­rec­tor of the Coali­tion Ad­vo­cat­ing for In­clu­sion of Sex­u­al Ori­en­ta­tion (CAISO). CAISO last year head­ed the ef­fort by T&T's gay, les­bian, bi-sex­u­al and trans-gen­der com­mu­ni­ties to mark the In­ter­na­tion­al Day against Ho­mo­pho­bia and Trans­pho­bia for the first time. Mem­bers had ob­served the an­niver­sary of the World Health Or­gan­i­sa­tion's May 17, 1990 de­clas­si­fi­ca­tion of ho­mo­sex­u­al­i­ty as a men­tal ill­ness.

CAISO mem­bers vis­it­ed min­istries de­liv­er­ing gift pack­ages, in­clud­ing T-shirts, to raise aware­ness of the shared costs of prej­u­dice. This year, Robin­son said, the groups were fo­cused on equal op­por­tu­ni­ty leg­is­la­tion stalled in Par­lia­ment for the past year that would mod­ernise the 12-year-old Equal Op­por­tu­ni­ty Act. This an­ti-dis­crim­i­na­tion statute ex­pands the Con­sti­tu­tion's promise of equal­i­ty and ac­cess to jus­tice. The groups' mes­sage is to "Add All Three", to in­clude in the law pro­tec­tion against dis­crim­i­na­tion, based on some­one's HIV sta­tus, their age and their sex­u­al ori­en­ta­tion. In to­day's walk, they will dri­ve home their mes­sage by first vis­it­ing the EOC com­mis­sion­ers at one end of Wright­son Road. They will then take their mes­sage to the Par­lia­ment Build­ing at the oth­er end of Wright­son Road where leg­is­la­tors will be at­tend­ing to­day's House of Rep­re­sen­ta­tives ses­sion from 1.30 pm. Group mem­bers want to greet MPs en­ter­ing Par­lia­ment. Robin­son said the groups wrote months ago ask­ing to meet with Gov­ern­ment to of­fer in­put on equal op­por­tu­ni­ty leg­is­la­tion but have not been re­spond­ed to. Robin­son said: "While over 50 coun­tries out­law dis­crim­i­na­tion based on sex­u­al ori­en­ta­tion in their laws or con­sti­tu­tions, in­clud­ing states that still have sodomy laws on their books, T&T's an­ti-dis­crim­i­na­tion statute, passed by the Unit­ed Na­tion­al Con­gress, dis­crim­i­nates ex­press­ly against gay peo­ple, specif­i­cal­ly writ­ing them out of the law's pro­tec­tion."

He added: "Hun­dreds of post­cards and let­ters have been sent to the Of­fice of the Prime Min­is­ter about the leg­is­la­tion. "This past March, how­ev­er, Gov­ern­ment told the Unit­ed Na­tions Hu­man Rights Coun­cil that it 'seeks to recog­nise the hu­man rights of all cit­i­zens,' which in­cludes the Les­bian, Gay, Bi-Sex­u­al and Trans­gen­dered (LGBT) com­mu­ni­ty" The groups want the EOC to un­der­take a study of dis­crim­i­na­tion in T&T, based on sex­u­al ori­en­ta­tion; to con­vene hear­ings to lis­ten to the ex­pe­ri­ences of LGBT peo­ple; and to rec­om­mend to Gov­ern­ment that sex­u­al ori­en­ta­tion be in­clud­ed in the equal op­por­tu­ni­ty law. They al­so urge the com­mis­sion to strength­en con­fi­den­tial­i­ty pro­tec­tions for vul­ner­a­ble com­plainants. Robin­son added, "All these things the Equal Op­por­tu­ni­ty Com­mis­sion is em­pow­ered to do but has de­clined, say­ing no one has filed com­plaints of dis­crim­i­na­tion based on sex­u­al ori­en­ta­tion, which vic­tims are for­bid­den to do by law." To­day's ac­tion will launch an ex­tend­ed cam­paign by the groups on the is­sue, in­clud­ing the re­lease of a video, Ok2by­ou, cel­e­brat­ing the val­ue of di­ver­si­ty in T&T. Par­lia­men­tar­i­ans will be in­vit­ed to be part of the video record­ing. While CAISO alone marked last year's In­ter­na­tion­al Day against Ho­mo­pho­bia, this year Robin­son said the group was not alone. He said oth­er groups in­volved in to­day's march in­clude the Fam­i­ly Plan­ning As­so­ci­a­tion, Free Pride Foun­da­tion, Friends for Life, MSM No Po­lit­i­cal Agen­da, the Sil­ver Lin­ing Foun­da­tion and the Women's Cau­cus of T&T. Robin­son added; "This re­flects the grow­ing num­ber of NGOs, the strength­ened in­ter­est in ad­vo­ca­cy and gov­ern­ment in the LGB com­mu­ni­ty, and the main­stream­ing of op­po­si­tion to ho­mo­pho­bia."

Groups say: "The Sil­ver Lin­ing Foun­da­tion is a re­sponse by young peo­ple to the ways in which ho­mo­pho­bia in school sys­tems and in so­ci­ety, and bul­ly­ing, based on per­ceived sex­u­al ori­en­ta­tion, pre­vent young peo­ple's healthy sex­u­al and emo­tion­al de­vel­op­ment. One of the group's founders, Je­re­my Ed­wards, said: "It some­times re­sults in trag­ic out­comes, as it has with friends of mine. "Young peo­ple are stand­ing up to make change. We need the coun­try's lead­ers to fol­low suit. Laws that pun­ish dis­crim­i­na­tion based on sex­u­al ori­en­ta­tion in ed­u­ca­tion are one es­sen­tial plank in the so­lu­tion." Tama­ra J Sylvester, a lawyer with Tell Your Sto­ry T&T, added: "The Equal Op­por­tu­ni­ty Act touch­es and con­cerns every­one. It is about equal­i­ty for all of us in law, not just any one group."