LGBTQ blind spots and Jason Jones
“We struggle with daily discrimination— inequitable distribution of resources, including housing, jobs, medical care, mental health care. We ask for protection against poverty, daily abuse and violence against the LGBTQIA community.” —Faye Ferdinandus, Director of Pride TT.
Our national anthem promises that “every creed and race find an equal place.” Think of how appalled we are by the systemic racism displayed at the Supreme Court confirmation hearing of Judge Ketanji Brown Jackson.
Think of our residual outrage at South Africa during Apartheid, or India when no “No Dogs or Indians” were allowed in white-only spaces. Think of the unspeakably racist human rights violations that gave rise to the civil rights movement in America.
You may believe in human rights for all, but have you thought of your blind spots? There is a community in Trinidad that is so regularly kicked in the teeth, a community with such a muted voice that even when they speak, we don’t listen because we don’t like how they look, speak, or who they love.
The LGBTQIA community.
It’s been four years. There has been no advocate like Jason Jones.
On April 12, 2018, Jones, a human rights defender won a landmark legal challenge in the High Court of T&T when Justice Devindra Rampersad ruled that Sections 13 and 16 of the Sexual Offences Act are “unconstitutional, illegal, null, void, invalid and are of no effect to the extent that these laws criminalise any acts constituting consensual sexual conduct between adults”.
I contacted Jones for an update.
“Following the resounding victory in the High Court of T&T in April 2018 (used successfully in the decriminalisation victory of India thereby releasing over 75 million Indian LGBTQ+ citizens from these heinous British Colonial laws), the Attorney General of T&T appealed that decision which will be heard at the T&T Appeal Court in January or February of 2023. I fully expect the T&T Appeal Court Judges to uphold the judgement of the Honourable Justice Rampersad in its entirety since it has had an enormous impact on similar cases globally and is now being taught in law schools in Canada, the UK and UWI.
“The interested parties against me (The Sanatan Dharma Maha Sabha of T&T & The T&T Council of Evangelical Churches) were also allowed to submit their rebuttals to my victory. The Equal Opportunity Commission (which supports my case) does not wish to submit anything further.”
What next? Something for the new Attorney General Reginald T A Armour SC to look at.
“As former Attorney General Faris Al-Rawi repeatedly stated, this appeal process is not to challenge the judgement, but to cement it—it will cascade across 27 pieces of legislation in the T&T Constitution discriminatory against our LGBTQ+ citizens.
“Last week, a landmark legal precedent was created at the United Nations when the UN Women’s rights committee found that the criminalisation of adult consensual same-sex intimacy between women is a human rights violation. We should be proud in T&T that we challenged Section 16 even before the United Nations.
“We also challenged the dreaded “savings clause” (Section 6 of our Constitution at our Independence by the British in case the Independence “experiment” failed and they had to come back in and seize power again.) It serves no purpose in a democratic republic such as ours and must be removed.”
How can citizens be part of the solution? “My work is at policy level and I am privileged to do this work, especially as my case has cost upwards of $8 million, all of which I raised myself.
The vital areas of advocacy that don’t cost a penny are community building—a united LGBTQ in T&T that works cohesively, peacefully and lifts each other up while raising consciousness in T&T. The other is visibility. I understand the issues of being openly LGBTQ+ in T&T. Still, there are privileged and protected members of the community who can be more visible, especially when the wider community already suspects that they are LGBTQ+. Being in a “glass closet” sends the message that we are ashamed to be LGBTQ+.
I’d like to see more openness and courage in being OUT, for that visibility sends a message of strength and assuredness that defeats the fears that stoke homophobic bigotry.”
Maybe you didn’t personally discriminate, but you know someone who has, and you’ve said nothing and are also part of the problem.
Discrimination triggers poverty, depression, and physical and mental health issues faced daily by the LGBTQIA community.
Jones reminds us, yet again, that when we stand up for the vulnerable amongst us, we stand up for ourselves, when we stand up for human rights for one among us, we stand up for all.