Jesus, Justice and transgender sex workers...



Image taken from Http://www.ilga-lac.org

Jasmine started the programme with a moving rendition of a gospel song - Jasmine's song implying  "Jesus, you are the only one for me."  Destra Santiago danced  to another gospel song - with powerful expressions of faith in the dance.  Another meditative  gospel was used for the moment for reflection for Tiffany Holder and the other transgendered persons who have been attacked.  It was meant to be a moment of silence, but many of the persons started singing along to the chorus and gradually ended the silence


Paula, Tiffany's aunt , spoke to the injustice of not seeing  a proper police  investigation into Tiffany's murder. Paula said she is leaving it to God and that she is sure justice will come in time. She did not want to kill anyone. She wanted to know why anyone would want to kill Tiffany.

Orin did a performance of a poem he wrote - "Frustration"

Tiffany Holder was murdered on 11 Jan, 2013. Guyana Trans United held its second event to commemorate the day, thinking about those who have been murdered and attacked. No charges laid against any one. No convictions.

Gulliver, functioning as the 'Executive Servant' of the Guyana Trans United  talked about the continuing need to seek justice even as more attacks happened after Tiffany's. Gulliver talked about the need for unity to deal with the injustice . The issue of the Director/Servant came up as Gulliver opened up the idea of how it was important for those leaders in the justice movement to see themselves as servants of the vulnerable communities.

Cracey the MC.  talked about working in the background so that people could see an entire community and not only one person.


Cuss Out/Unity
There was talk about the need for unity when dealing with the injustice and discrimination.  'We should not be cussing out one another or gossiping'.. 'whether we is transgender or MSM or whatever.. is de same ting we does be doing .. same ting we facing'..and quotation from Confucius and so. Another person said 'we should not only come together when people dead but also when we have to stand up together all the time"
Some persons talked about being sex workers.


Gulliver talked about alliance building. One of the persons in attendance is involved in the HIV/AIDS governance and one of the trade unions. Another ally said that it was difficult sometimes to be an ally with all the disagreement within the gay community.

There was something about remembering that spontaneous singing of the chorus to the gospel , and hearing talk about the need to come together and to 'put aside difference'.


A young man spoke of his membership in the PNCR. He said that this year's elections would be a good time to keep the fight for justice visible - 'go and protest outside Office of the President'. 

I am not a fan of unity.  I believe people should be honest about their desires, goals and visions as they unite with others in some idea of what justice looks like. There should no assumptions that 'all of us want the same thing'. We do not all want the same thing.

At the same time, it was humbling to listen to the open discussion about the disunity even though there was no solution apart from 'put aside our differences'.

After the symposium, participants walked to the site where Tiffany's body was found.   I could not go with the march.

There was an irony . The marchers called for justice, surrounded by the traffic police outriders. The irony that some of the persons who watched the march preferred to worry about 'abomination' rather than justice.  Where is Jesus in all of this?

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Turpentine mango madness

Image
Some of the mango was stuck on the stubble around my mouth. I looked at the mirror, a bit of shame because I had just collected an invitation from a well dressed guy and I wonder how I must have looked to him.. look at dis big man .. he cyan eat mango good . Thing is.. wiping off mango from stubble is difficult.. and the casual swipe with a hand which might have some juice is also useless. The turpentine mango is useless when it is green - it tastes awful, like turpentine.  Mother Nature works a miracle because the ripe one though, is sweet, juicy, no strings and no turpentine taste. And the colours on the skins are bright yellow/orange/pink/purple/red shades that are probably meant to draw all species of mango lovers. The trouble with turpentine is that you cannot pick it green or 'turnin' ' to ripen like say how they do it with Spice mangoes.  You have to leave on the tree until there is some point.. when there is no taste of turpentine. So you look at the m...
Read more

Dear Janelly David, I am sorry..

Image
  Dear Janelly David, I am sorry we , your nation,  your community, other men around you could not stop t he man from killing you. Y ou are 16 years old and many people hope that 16 years old would be close to completing school. I am sorry that we could not make things good for you to be in school. What dreams did you have? What did you like to do? What did you want for yourself? What did you want to be when you grew up?   I am sorry that if you were experiencing problems, that we did not do enough to make sure that you knew how to be in a good relationship, and where to get help if things went bad.   I am sorry, that even though you are living in a place with a lot of gold, and a lot of oil, that the man killed you.   Did you know about the One Guyana Ministerial Task Force which was set up to tackle the "social ills" , which resulted in the man killing you? Did you feel a part of President Ali's One Guyana, living in the mining camp?  The Village ...
Read more

The spider which drew me in..

Image
  Spider Go down in the yard , wondering if I should so something about the banana suckers which springing up all over, in my mind some story to spread them out and then others saying lef them  and then I look between the broad green leaves and see the large delicate web.   In the middle, the black and gold/yellow spider being very still.  I have not seen one of these before and I realise that I have not seen spiders for awhile in the yard or the house (maybe the lizards? ). And so I try to move under the banana leaves, in between them so as not to disturb the web and to check out the spider. And I check it every day that I go down. Other animals might move when they sense 'humans' but in the hot afternoon, the spider is still.  Bokeh I fiddle with camera, reading out about bokeh and trying to understand how I could catch cobweb on an image with the spider on it, much as I suspect the spider has me caught in a way.  I check for it every time I go down...
Read more