LGBTIQ Pride 2015 from Toronto to Gay-ana Facebook..

The man asked on Facebook why I had not rainbowed up my display. He is a nice guy so I did not want to burden him with my politics.

I did not want to rainbow because I am suspicious of Facebook's motives and Facebook as corporate entity joining the LGBT equality movement is not free from criticism. 

 The other thing is that Pride is a kind of foreign thing, and while foreign thing is not bad, it seem kind of like Thanksgiving and Turkey and Halloween and that it must be celebrated in a certain Globalised way with rainbow flag and so on.

I mean.. while I have no solutions, it would be nice if Guyanese/Caribbean people could find ways to celebrate progress/mourn lack of progress in LGBT equality which have nothing to do with beer companies and cities making money.  And miserable anti-drinking anti-celebration-without-conscious cynic that I am, I keep thinking of how people who are concerned like #blackoutpride ,  that the thing is not protest any more and that the only people who get annoyed are those who are homophobic and those who do not have the acceptable perfect bodies to Parade in their underwear or naked.
 

Self righteous hypocrite that I am though,  I happily accepted an invitation to participate in a Toronto Pride event - a conference  Pride & Prejudice: Human Rights in the Pan Am Region .

There was a panel on Decriminalization (homosexuality) in the Caribbean Region which was had Jamaican activist Maurice Tomlinson and Bahamian activist Erin Greene. The panel was chaired by Alica Hall, a co-chair of Pride Toronto and who is   of Guyanese and Jamaican origins. 


I used my presentation to talk about how people in Guyana and the Caribbean have been pursuing anti-discrimination policies even as decrim. takes a while. 

Wearing Chantilly lace and Resisting criminalization in Guyana and the Caribbean from Vidyaratha Kissoon

Conscious that the event was Pride, I thought of bringing to the audience the story of how on Friday 10 July, 1959, in Charlestown Georgetown there was apparently an "all male wedding" where the "bride" wore Chantilly lace over slipper satin. This was 10 years before stonewall and 14 years before the first kind of Pride in New York

In the days around the presentation, I notice the rainbowing of Facebook friends.  While it is easy to be cynical about Facebook, I am constantly surprised, shocked sometimes at the Facebook frenz who have decided to rainbow their profile. Some of them I least expected to do so as they never seemed concerned about homophobia or LGBTIQ equality.

And I heard a former economics professor talk about LGBT Equality briefly at a symposium on the future of Guyana and I thought , never mind the absence of Pride in Guyana. because after the parade, it is the day to day discrimination which will have to be dealt with.

I wondered when I saw one woman's rainbowing if she understood what it was about , or if she just thought it was pretty and then I wondered oh my gosh.. she not married, she have a child, her hair always short, she always wear trousers. is she . . is she.. is she..

And I liked that some people might leave unanswered questions rather than those who rainbowed and then asserted their heterosexuality.. "I am straight but I understand.. rass man.. how about.. "so far I am straight but who knows what might happen... "

But then when the reporter in Canada asked me 'would you be comfortable telling us your sexual orientation'.. I said no, that I do not like labels but politically I am a black lesbian. He laughed and said, yes he had read that.