Pride TT is call­ing on the Gov­ern­ment to act de­ci­sive­ly to safe­guard the LGBTQIA+ com­mu­ni­ty by im­ple­ment­ing sev­er­al im­me­di­ate mea­sures.

In a re­lease is­sued on Sat­ur­day, Kennedy Everett Maraj, co-founder of Pride TT, said these in­clude the re­peal of out­dat­ed and dis­crim­i­na­to­ry laws that crim­i­nalise LGBTQIA+ peo­ple; in­tro­duce le­gal pro­tec­tions that guar­an­tee equal­i­ty, safe­ty, and dig­ni­ty for all cit­i­zens, re­gard­less of sex­u­al ori­en­ta­tion or gen­der iden­ti­ty and in­ves­ti­gate and pros­e­cute acts of vi­o­lence against LGBTQIA+ in­di­vid­u­als with the same ur­gency and se­ri­ous­ness as any oth­er crime.

The call came af­ter the find­ings of the lat­est In­sights from Whole­ness and Jus­tice Re­port from CAISO: Sex and Gen­der Jus­tice. The re­port stat­ed that there have been no af­fir­ma­tive steps by the State to in­clude and pro­tect the hu­man rights of LGBTQI+ peo­ple in Trinidad and To­ba­go.

The re­port not­ed that in 2024, LGBTQIA+ peo­ple sought “whole­ness and jus­tice ser­vices” most com­mon­ly for do­mes­tic vi­o­lence (fam­i­ly vi­o­lence and in­ti­mate part­ner vi­o­lence), ha­rass­ment and as­sault, and em­ploy­ment-re­lat­ed is­sues.

Maraj said Pride TT stood in sol­i­dar­i­ty with the glob­al LGBTQIA+ com­mu­ni­ty in com­mem­o­rat­ing this year’s In­ter­na­tion­al Day Against Ho­mo­pho­bia, Bi­pho­bia, and Trans­pho­bia (IDA­HO­BIT) un­der the theme: The Pow­er of Com­mu­ni­ties.

He said this year’s theme un­der­scored the un­wa­ver­ing strength and re­silience of LGBTQIA+ in­di­vid­u­als who, in the face of what he called State in­ac­tion and lack of pro­tec­tion, have been forced to de­pend on each oth­er for safe­ty, sup­port, and sur­vival.

“In T&T we are re­mind­ed dai­ly of the harsh re­al­i­ties our com­mu­ni­ty con­tin­ues to face,” Maraj said.

He not­ed that just this month, sev­er­al re­ports emerged of gay men be­ing lured through dat­ing apps and vi­cious­ly at­tacked, yet no ar­rests have been made.

This pat­tern of vi­o­lence and in­ac­tion, Maraj added, is un­ac­cept­able, stat­ing that it sends a chill­ing mes­sage to LGBTQIA+ peo­ple that their lives are not a pri­or­i­ty, and that jus­tice is out of reach.

“We can­not con­tin­ue to pre­tend that these are iso­lat­ed in­ci­dents. This vi­o­lence is a di­rect re­sult of a sys­tem that re­fus­es to recog­nise LGBTQIA+ peo­ple as equal cit­i­zens. The re­cent Court of Ap­peal rul­ing up­hold­ing the colo­nial-era bug­gery law re­in­forces this dan­ger­ous mes­sage, fur­ther le­git­imis­ing the mar­gin­al­i­sa­tion and crim­i­nal­i­sa­tion of LGBTQIA+ lives.

“The theme, The Pow­er of Com­mu­ni­ties, is not just sym­bol­ic – it is a call to ac­tion. When the law fails, when sys­tems stay silent, it is our com­mu­ni­ties that step in. But we should not have to do this alone,” Maraj main­tained.

Pride TT fur­ther urged civ­il so­ci­ety or­gan­i­sa­tions, aca­d­e­m­ic in­sti­tu­tions, labour groups, pri­vate sec­tor al­lies, and faith-based lead­ers to speak out and stand with us.

“True ally­ship and com­mu­ni­ty means ac­tion, and the time for ac­tion is now,” it said.

The or­gan­i­sa­tion claimed that while the State con­tin­ues to fail in its du­ty to pro­tect LGBTQIA+ peo­ple, it said its com­mu­ni­ty con­tin­ues to show what re­al pow­er looks like through ad­vo­ca­cy, care, and col­lec­tive re­sis­tance.

“In a world that too of­ten mar­gin­alis­es dif­fer­ence, our di­ver­si­ty is our strength. LGBTQIA+ peo­ple are artists, ed­u­ca­tors, work­ers, care­givers, lead­ers, where our con­tri­bu­tions have shaped cul­ture, built economies, and en­riched so­ci­eties,” it added.