In case I haven’t mentioned before, I’m still in the closet to my parents and family. Why? I see it as a personal choice. You come out when you’re ready. I like the freedom of doing as I please for now without the feeling of my parents and/or family judging or watching over my every action. Fortunately for me, when I do come out it’s not as dangerous at it would be if I were living in Jamaica, which is where my family is from. It is a known fact that for anyone residing in the West Indies or of West Indian descent being gay isn’t easy.
My parents were both born and raised in Jamaica. My dad grew up in Kingston, Jamaica whilst my mother grew up in the parish of St. Anne’s. When my parents were in their twenties, they came to New York to start a new life and work. I was fortunate to be born in the United States where gay rights have come a lot further than many other countries. [Still not the top of the tolerance list but not the bottom either]
However in places like Jamaica, Trinidad and Tobago and a few other west Indian countries, with the exception of Haiti and Puerto Rico and a few others, being a queer person isn’t a thrill ride. Jamaica, for example, is a easy going, beautiful country with stunning beaches and a diverse culture of many different ethnicities. It is also happens to be filled with an extremely large Christian population, holding the record in the Guinness Book of Records with the most churches per capita mile. In this “melting pot of Christianity”, you would find equal percentages of Anglicans, Baptists and members of “ The Church of God” as well as Seventh Day Adventists, Methodists, the United Church of Christ, Pentecostals and even a healthy portion of Roman Catholics among the Chinese, Lebanese and East Indian communities. Many of these branches of Christianity teach that homosexuality is a sin. Reggae music rife with homophobic lyrics calling for violence against the LGBT people continues to run rampant and is widely produced and marketed in the country.
In Jamaica, for LGBT individuals, men especially, are threatened by law stating that sexual acts between men is illegal and punishable for up to ten years, although this law is seldom enforced when it’s consensual.
Jamaica’s criminal code states the following:
Article 76 of the Offences Against the Person Act states:
Whosoever shall be convicted of the abominable crime of buggery, committed either with mankind or with any animal, shall be liable to be imprisoned and kept to hard labor for a term not exceeding ten years.
Article 77 adds:
Whosoever shall attempt to commit the said abominable crime, or shall be guilty of any assault with intent to commit the same, or of any indecent assault upon any male person, shall be guilty of a misdemeanor, and being convicted thereof, shall be liable to be imprisoned for a term not exceeding seven years, with or without hard labor.
Article 79 further states:
Any male person who, in public or private, commits, or is a party to the commission of, or procures or attempts to procure the commission by any male person of, any act of gross indecency with another male person, shall be guilty of a misdemeanor, and being convicted thereof shall be liable at the discretion of the court to be imprisoned for a term not exceeding two years, with or without hard labor.
“Gross indecency” is said to refer to any acts of sexual conducts between two men, including among consensual adults in private. Even when this law isn’t enforced, LGBT men are often victims of beatings or even lynched if found out that they are gay. For LGBT women, since there is no current mention of them in Jamaican criminal code are exempt from this law, however, they are often dragged out of their homes if found gay and beaten or killed or even prone to “corrective rape”, a criminal practice where men rape LGBT women purportedly as a means of “curing “ the woman of her sexual orientation.
Sadly as well, due to the repression of homosexuality many times there are instances of fondling, sexual assualt or child abuse at a young age by a family member, neighbor or even people the family trusts.
Since I haven’t personally experienced these atrocities growing up in the US, I found personal accounts that help explain what LGBT people go through.
The first of the videos is a personal account I found online of a jamaican lesbian describing the violence toward LGBT in Jamaica. The other two videos, are of Staceyann Chin, the first out and proud lesbian, jamaican activist, poet and playwright I’ve found in my through my usual night-owl- browsing the internet in search of prominent LGBT figures. I wanted to share both her story and her poem because the first time I heard it, it really touched me and as a gay, jamaican-american she gives me hope. I feel maybe it’ll do the same for you~
[It feels different when you actually hear a first hand account…]
Stacey ann Chin on Violence in Jamaica
Stacey ann Chin speaks at National Equality Rally [Powerful speech]
Jamaica is still labeled as one of the most homophobic places to visit and though the Human Rights Activists are trying their best to make it better for gays in Jamaica and request that Jamaica removes these unjust laws and aid against the growing violence toward LGBT people, to no avail. One can only hope that one day, light is shed on this dark country.
What is your ethnicity, culture or background? How is homosexuality interpreted?
When reading about the atrocities faced by LGBT communities in countries abroad how does it make you feel?
