Old and new, trans and queer and gay, black and coolie , love and missing the spelling mistake - Pride Symposium 2019 Guyana

Old and new
Sitting in the Georgetown Club. Thursday 30th May .  The Pride Symposium is one of the events for the Pride activities.

The 2018 symposium was about LGBTI and Family. There were powerful stories - sharing of family acceptance, and family rejection. About adopting children, and about being banned from seeing children.

Symposium is a kind of formal word. But symposium could mean a interactive  gaff. I made an effort to be here again.


Colleen McEwan introduces Guybow.   Guybow was founded by Andre Sobryan to offer support to gay men dealing with HIV/AIDS in 1990s.

Guybow now does work with lesbian, bisexual and queer identifying women. It is the 'oldest' LGBT organisation.  In the conversation, Colleen and Maeve talked about the Mother's Day concert they had, and the fun day for the families . Different from the beginning when HIV/AIDs first came to Guyana.

The other partner for the Symposium is Equal Guyana. The newest LGBT organisation, launched on 17 May, 2019.  Anil Persaud, Founder and Managing Director of Equal Guyana spoke about the organisation, and the intention to use artistic learning, visual arts and other arts in the education and empowerment programmes.. I listened to him, admiring the eloquence, the details, the firm sense of purpose. Thinking of  purpose..thinking of how much he sounded like the young Joel Simpson , Founder and Managing Director of SASOD at another forum  in 2003.

Old and new organising .. Colleen talks that in doing the work against discrimination, it is important to remember the achievements .

Valini Leitch talked about her work at SASOD. She talked of the record of different kinds of violations of human rights. She talked about the achievement since the last Pride , of the CCJ ruling on the challenge to Guyana's cross dressing laws. She talked of other initiatives and felt that the training of Police was a positive step in making change.

I am cynical about police training. Police have been trained in domestic violence interventions a long time ago. But there is no accountability, no monitoring so there are no guarantees about the police response to domestic violence or to homophobia.


Trans, queer and gay
Alessandra Hereman talked about Guyana Trans United. She talked about the resilience of the trans community. She talked about Guyana Trans United's work on economic empowerment. She talked of her own employment in HIV/AIDs prevention programmes, and the importance of teaching and educating the public about sexual orientation and gender identity.

She shared an anecdote about a person from Berbice who was realised after training, that their identity was not as a gay man, but a transgender woman.


"As a queer woman, I want to be in an organisation to help advance human rights" a woman told me as we talked about her interest (and concerns) about different organisations.

I still think of "queer" as a foreign, 'white' word, which could have radical meanings in terms of social justice and equality.

I am old though, and identities and labels and meanings change. People apply them in different ways.

There is talk about the University of Guyana, the experience of choosing washrooms. Staff are expected in the Staff Code of Conduct to  "treat everyone fairly and equitably irrespective of  of their  their 'sexual inclination'  ,  while students are told in the Student Guide to desist from exhibiting prejudice based on 'sexual preference'. 




Black and coolie
People talk about discrimination 'within the community'. I know some gay men who are as sexist and patriarchal as straight men, and as abusive towards women.  I know class is a big deal, and that class divisions are manifested in subtle and not so subtle ways.

In Guyana though, where diversity usually means black , coolie, Amerindian , Chinese, whatever race, I am naive to feel relieved that in LGBT politics, with all of the problems and differences, that race has not manifested itself as it has in other spheres. 

Even as many LGBT citizens go for ethnic voting patterns, that when dealing with LGBT identities, class seems to be a bigger factor of difference than race.

I wonder about intersectionality and I bring it up. But I am not sure anyone heard me.
I think that there is knowledge and experience to share with marginalised people about dealing with the state, and culture when dealing with human rights, and that LGBT rights are not separate from the rights of any marginalised group.

That the minibus driver which picks up able bodied LGBT passengers is no good if the minibus driver is not picking up the elderly or persons with disabilities.

And that LGBT friendly politicians can do no real good if the LGBT friendly politicians rely on sexist and racial colleagues to maintain political power (even if the LGBT friendly politician 'condemns' the behaviour.)


Love
Colleen introduces two women to the room . The woman left their homes and families in Berbice because the families did not accept their relationship with each other. I am glad to meet them as despite the challenges of housing and employment in Georgetown, they are happy together. And their families have resumed some contact.

I sit in a chair near to the two women. A boy tells me that it is his seat I am sitting in.

I asks him as we exchange seats, if he has been mandated to look after the two women and to make sure they are all right. He says 'Yes, .. " and we all laugh.

Love in all forms.

Missing the spelling mistake
I come home and look back at the flyer. I realise that there is a spelling mistake on the flyer. I know that at another time if I was involved in organising the event, that I would have muttered under my breath and cursed and so on about people not doing their work and so.

But with so much wrong in the world, and with the different struggles for many lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgendered, intersex, queer citizens,  the wrong word on the flyer looks perfect.