Ten years after the public forum "Sexual Orientation as a Fundamental Right for Guyanese"..

(There are some audio files linked in the text )

Sunday 27 April, 2003 was a rainy day, as it is today in 2013.

At 2pm, the Hibiscus Room of the Hotel Tower was empty, save for the organisers and one quiet person who sat at the back. By 3pm the room was packed and there was standing room only.

I was one of the organisers of the first public forum on 'Sexual Orientation as a Fundamental Right for Guyanese".

Advertisement in the Guyana Chronicle Friday 25 April, 2003

Advertisement in the Kaieteur News edition of April 25-26, 2003

In 2001, President Jagdeo had succumbed to the prayers of Mr Edghill and the other religious persons who had lobbied him not to assent to a constitutional bill which would have made sexual orientation one of the prohibited grounds of discrimination.

In 2003, the issue was up for debate again.






















It started in India.. 

In 2003, Guyana was recovering from the horrific crimes and the tense environment surrounding the Mash Day 2002 jail break. Sanjay Kabir Bavikatte came to Guyana to teach at the University of Guyana. He was from Bangalore and was one of the founding student activists in the LGBT movement in Bangalore.

He and I agreed that it was good to plan a public forum after the discussions in the letters columns.

He recalls the environment as he found it at the time :-

Reverend Mike James, Deacon of the Roman Catholic Church in Guyana agreed to be the moderator. Ravi Dev was the representative of GAP/ROAR in the Parliament. ROAR had included "sexual orientation" in their submission to the Constitutional Reform Commission. Dr Julie Hando is a pscyhologist who was working as UN Volunteer with the Ministry of Health.

I looked at the expressions on the faces of the accounts staff as  I  went to put the ads in the papers. It was interesting to note the polite looks. I remember one of the other newspaper staff raising her eyebrows and saying 'interesting!'. The newspaper graphics artists did the layout for the ads and I always wondered what they were thinking when they did the ad. 

"Like antiman cyan come hey.."
The forum started late. People from all walks of life were coming in. A group of the members of the Evangelical Fellowship who had organised the 2001 Prayer Fast came in together. Moulana Zenjibari , a Shiite Islamic scholar came in. About half way through the forum, two of the gay sex workers came in and noted that the empty chairs were up front. As one moved through, he said 'like anti man cyan come hey,' and then found a seat next to Moulana Zenjibari.

Another woman who was in the audience said later she wondered if there was going to be a confrontation.

Discussion, dialogue but no fight..
Mike James in his opening remarks welcomed the audience and said he recognised that there were people who were on all sides of the debate. The presentations were recorded by the Guyana Broadcasting Corporation and were transcribed by a young man who was scared to come to the forum.

Ravi Dev first gave his views about Minority Rights in a Secular Democracy. This presentation  was followed by Dr Julie Hando who dispelled ideas that homosexuality was a curable mental illness. Sanjay Bavikatte then spoke of the oppression of sexual minorities and the history of homophobia.

I spoke about the issues in Guyana at the time, and read an email sent in by B. a teacher who spoke about fearing what would happen if he came to the forum.

A report of the forum covers some of the of discussions which happened after the presentations. While there were many different  views, there were no fights and the discussion remained civil. One of the experienced political and social justice activists remarked to me afterwards that she wanted me to organise more forums on a 'whole set ah tings'.


Keon was a student teacher at the time. He remembers welcoming the idea of the forum. He said on reflection that "Being there was a privilege for me because I,  like the others there, was interested to be a part of the change process for equality for all in that case the LGBT community. I believe that there were many motivational speeches and lots of passion that engulfed the room as to how to address the issues."

Antonio Paul remembers being the first person there. He does not remember the details of the presentations but remembers the vocal religious people, but also feeling that his views would have been welcome if he had to share them.

B.  commented that  "I remember thinking Guyana wasn't ready for this kind of thing. That people were far too set in their ways to give it a chance, or listen to the message. But I also remember thinking that everything had to start some time and it would be a worthwhile exercise not in terms of speaking to the general community but to the queer community, in terms of getting a foundation set for a time when things were more in the favour of real reform. We had to speak to ourselves before we could speak to others. "



"A giant has been awakened.." - media coverage of the forum

Guyana Chronicle : 4 May, 2003

The Guyana Broadcasting Corporation sent a technician who recorded the entire proceedings. These proceedings were broadcast twice after the event. Ms Margaret Lawrence, Programme Manager at the time said that she felt that the public needed to hear this discussion. (The recordings have been misplaced hopefully temporarily). Ms Lawrence is an example of the part of Guyana which was keen to move on from the divisions.

GBC also recorded the full proceedings of the first forum of the Students Against Sexual Orientation Discrimination in June 2003.

Prime News (television) was there. One participant however said that he did not expect to be seen on TV.

Christopher Ram invited Sanjay and me to talk on his TV programme , Plain Talk. He also attended the forum.

The Guyana Chronicle carried their story in the Sunday Chronicle the week after the forum. This was the only print media to carry a story.

Headline from Sunday Chronicle 4 May, 2003

 

  The reporter, Esther Elijah opened the article with "A GIANT has been awakened'. 

What exactly is the nature of the awakened giant?

Will grew up on in a village on the East Coast of Demerara. He did not come to the forum.  In this podcast he talks about the forum, his feelings at the time and what has been happening since then. He reflects on the changes in the global attitude to LGBT and his hopes for Guyana



B. said that "The forum lifted a heavy sense of loneliness off me. I haven't changed my lifestyle. I'm not open or anything like that, but I made a couple of friends and I made the HUGE realisation that I'm not alone in this predicament of being gay in Guyana."

Keon is now pursuing post-graduate studies in education. He muses that "Ten years later, Guyana with reference to the LGBT community is somewhat complicated. Complicated in the sense that the government will argue that there is no real discrimination, and ask for evidence and I don't think there is a lot of evidence. The cross dresser may on the other hand say that they are severely discriminated. I see members of the LGBT community in Guyana in all kinds of social settings and they are 'tolerated' providing they don't 'act out' and while we would want them to be themselves, most times they tend to 'over do'."

Mike James who efficiently moderated the forum,  has always advocated the position of the Roman Catholic Church, first articulated by Bishop Benedict Singh in 2001. While the Church continued its position on not supporting sex outside of heterosexual marriage, they noted that "In society at large – and in our church – there are homosexual men and lesbian women who lead useful and virtuous lives. Many of them show an active concern for justice and for the plight of the needy which is an example to all of us. In the face of the discrimination they encounter, some of them can be described as truly heroic.”

Mike now lives in Trinidad &  Tobago and he has had cause to remind the public about this position of non-discrimination several times over the last decade.  Mike also quotes Jesus

Do not judge, and you will not be judged; because the judgements you give are the judgements you will get, and the standard you use will be the standard used for you. Why do you observe the splinter in your brother's eye and never notice the great log in your own? And how dare you say to your brother, "Let me take that splinter out of your eye," when, look, there is a great log in your own? Hypocrite! Take the log out of your own eye first, and then you will see clearly enough to take the splinter out of your brother's eye.” Matt 7: 1-6

 and he prays for "the grace to be careful in judging or condemning my brother homosexual or sister lesbian lest I be condemned to the same harsh judgement” 

Ravi Dev is no longer active in politics. In his reflections on the forum, he said he realised when confronted with the fundamentalist Christian views, that it was important for him to research the Hindu position. He had never thought to do that before. He believes that the forum was important in that initiated the ongoing discussion about an issue which would have been swept under the carpet - noting how his children are also discussing this issue among many others. 

He feels as a Hindu that the way our plural society deals with sexual orientation is one of the tests of how we deal with diversity and difference.

He recognises the importance of rights as being as a 'shield', but also said he is cautious that it does not become a sword, though he has no evidence of this happening anywhere in the world. 

He also thinks of dharma and how LGBT people will live, whether there is some compromise in terms of the society in which the people live and the values which prevail, and wonders what the nature of that compromise would be for any Hindu LGBT person.

This idea of compromise is perhaps how B. lives as he describes himself , a 'veteran teacher in a rural community". 

B. noted that "I would not attend [a forum] now simply from the professional fear. I mentioned in my written contribution at the time that parents would be unhappy about a gay teacher for their children and I still believe this to mostly be the case. I am out as gay to most of my family/friends and they are happy with that. But I don't want to complicate my job, especially when I feel like I help a lot of people.  "

B. in talking about the changes in the last 10 years feels that the Internet has created a shift and that ".. the internet is a huge boost in this regard. Gay kids aren't as likely to grow up feeling disconnected the way my generation did. They're less likely to be passive, isolated and withdrawn. They're more likely to have accepting and supporting friends, so that makes them more likely to be the ones who act publicly, even if it's something as non-political as holding hands in a restaurant." 

In the discussion of laws and rights, he says that "I don't look to laws or treaties or conventions for a fix. The solution, as with most problems, is change in the education of regular people. I mentioned the internet and mass media enabling this. Once the population comes to the side of equality, then the laws will either be irrelevant or fall into righteousness."

Sanjay's reflections about the last 10 years, looking at South Africa where he lived, are in this podcast. He talks about the importance of social changes as well as the legal changes.

Changes in the last 10 years
There are many things which have changed in the society and in the consciousness of LGBT people. The Guyanese media have played an important role in reporting fairly on LGBT issues, with some exception. The advocacy of groups like SASOD and GuyBow have kept the issues present and visible, and 10 years after the 'Constitutional Debate' which ended up nowhere , the Parliament again is expected to consider gay and trans rights as they discuss the repeal of the 'sodomy' laws and the cross dressing laws.


One important change is that the in April 2003, trans issues were not well known and spoken about by the budding activists, but the movement in Guyana is now articulating trans issues. 10 years ago, women were quiet in the movement and that has changed now with the formation of groups like Guyanese Sistahs.

B. felt that many Guyanese are gradually learning to accept that LGBT people are part of the diversity, and noted the sentiments about Same Sex Marriage Coming Our Way in the recent Peeping Tom article in Kaieteur News.

While many  like B. feel that there is a need for some caution, Antonio Paul called Sir Paul since he was a teacher,  is happy in his life in Best Village, in Region 3 where he has been living with his partner for 13 years.


He reflects briefly on the last 10 years.. (apologies for poor quality of images and audio )




The giant that was awakened ten years ago was the idea that it was possible in Guyana to contemplate the diversity in sexual orientation and gender identity.  The giant is also the daring to dream that  Guyana will realise its immense potential to overcome the prejudices, and that all LGBT Guyanese will feel as Sirpaul does... that  "things are getting better' and it is possible to be liberated.