Kevon Felmine

Se­nior Re­porter

kevon.felmine@guardian.co.tt

While the LGBTQ+ com­mu­ni­ty read­ies it­self to cel­e­brate Pride Month in T&T, at­ten­dance at the an­nu­al flag-rais­ing event in San Fer­nan­do dwin­dled.

With re­cent vi­o­lence and crit­i­cism against the com­mu­ni­ty, South Pride and Al­lies chair­man Sean Gob­in Singh said, many peo­ple were afraid to at­tend the event.

When the group showed up at San Fer­nan­do Hill on Sat­ur­day, to raise their rain­bow flag, there were about 15 peo­ple, many of whom were afraid to stand be­fore cam­eras.

The an­nu­al flag-rais­ing launch­es the group’s Pride Month cel­e­bra­tions in T&T, a month af­ter oth­er coun­tries cel­e­brat­ed it. 

“Many peo­ple are scared to come out be­cause of the re­cent killing of Kevon and oth­er com­mu­ni­ty mem­bers and the back­lash we got from RIK hav­ing LGBT-friend­ly books. Peo­ple ac­cuse us of try­ing to con­vert chil­dren. That is not what we are about. We are just try­ing to be hap­py and live our lives and love who we want to love,” Gob­in Singh said.

A gun­man fa­tal­ly shot so­cial me­dia in­flu­encer Kevon “Yank Boss” Solomon as he parked his car at Trinci­ty Mall on June 24.

He was known for tak­ing on known fig­ures on his so­cial me­dia plat­forms. His mur­der al­so came just be­fore his Fairy on the Fer­ry 2—Come Sail in Pride boat ride.

RIK Book­sellers al­so faced crit­i­cism and protest for sell­ing and pro­mot­ing books on the LGBTQI+ lifestyle.

The First Wave Move­ment protest­ed at RIK’s San Fer­nan­do store, say­ing the com­mu­ni­ty would use these books to sex­u­al­ly groom chil­dren by get­ting them to think a par­tic­u­lar way.

In re­sponse, RIK said it was com­mit­ted to sell­ing books to all mem­bers of the pub­lic re­gard­less of their gen­der af­fil­i­a­tion or iden­ti­ty.

In a state­ment, the book­seller said it served the pub­lic’s in­ter­est for al­most half a cen­tu­ry and was de­light­ed to con­tin­ue.

Gob­in Singh said South Pride and Al­lies’ pur­pose was not to con­vert or force any­one to be gay.

He said there would usu­al­ly be over 20 peo­ple at the event.

De­spite the back­lash and fear, he said, they would con­tin­ue cel­e­brat­ing Pride Month with a pic­nic, ex­cur­sions, hikes, on­line talk shops on men­tal health and Know Your Right seg­ments so the LGBTQI+ com­mu­ni­ty would know what it could and could not do ac­cord­ing to law.

Gob­in Singh said while some peo­ple with­held their ho­mo­sex­u­al­i­ty, fear­ing their fam­i­ly would re­ject them, they would even­tu­al­ly build the courage to re­veal their true selves.

Bob­by Sama­roo, the events co­or­di­na­tor, said the flag-rais­ing event raised aware­ness for the fight for equal­i­ty and equal rights in T&T.

Sama­roo said his group was ask­ing for fun­da­men­tal hu­man rights, in­clud­ing the free­dom to love, live and ex­ist as they are.

He said it was noth­ing short of what every­one else had in T&T.