Right thing to do

Many NGOs have worked hard to raise awareness about the need to combat homophobia. The Bocas Lit Fest recently held a series of panel discussions on human rights and LGBTI issues. A consortium of LGBTI NGO organizations continues to host events and workshops.

Next month will be I Am One’s Pride Arts Festival.

But these organizations can only scratch the surface when it comes to the tremendous work that still needs to be done on the issue of equality. The biggest actors in this regard are not NGOs and activists.

The biggest actors are the ordinary women and men who determine how our society is shaped from the ground up. As with so much in life, things start at the family level.

A seminal 2009 study found higher rates of family rejection were linked to poorer health outcomes for LGBTI persons. Lesbian, gay, and bisexual young adults who report higher levels of family rejection during adolescence are three times more likely to report having had unprotected sex.

The realisation or revelation that a young person’s sexual orientation or gender identity is at odds with cultural norms or religious teachings is distressing for some families.

Often, relatives respond with uneasy silence. Other families attempt to use unproven and dangerous methods to change their loved ones. All too often young people are abused, rejected, disowned or put out.

There is a clear link between the social vulnerability caused by family rejection and HIV. A 2013 Jamaica study found that HIV rates were highest among men who have sex with men who had experienced adverse life events including homelessness and physical violence. When families reject the people they purport to love, they not only violate what should be inviolable, but they literally put their relatives in harm’s way.

Which is why it was disappointing neither the Office of Prime Minister Dr Keith Rowley nor Opposition Leader Kamla Persad-Bissessar issued any statements on this important issue last week Wednesday.

Both the PNM and the UNC are aware of LGBTI issues and the fact that there is much public debate on them.

If public health concerns do not sway the politicians, then perhaps moral concerns might.

As repeatedly noted by the Equal Opportunity Commission, it remains untenable that a statute designed to combat discrimination is itself used to enact discrimination.

But the Equal Opportunity Act is just one area where reform is long overdue. Several archaic criminal statutes potentially may be used against LGBTI persons. (Some are being challenged in court by activist Jason Jones.) These colonial-era laws have not been repealed by successive administrations since Independence. The Immigration Act’s bar on the entry of homosexuals remains a major fetter on our tourism industry.

But there are many other areas of everyday life in which LGBTI persons face perils and micro-aggressions, many of which are far from public view but nonetheless still profoundly damaging.

We stand in solidarity with the LGBTI community and call for more action to end discrimination.

We say we do not need statutes or politicians to tell us what we already know: it is simply the right thing to do.