Thoughts of a minibus traveller

Pride   "Nah, dem gun be talking about antiman and lesbian and dem ting" the young man said as I was passing after a woman asked him if he was not going to the gender-based violence workshop.  I told him to come and find out what we will be planning to talk about. He laughed.  Another young man in the workshop was concerned about only two genders. He said homosexuality is a mental illness. Hands across chest , defending his masculinity and maleness and his normalness. Another woman in the workshop said something different - everybody is human, June is Pride month.  Workshop has an uneasy consensus that while we might not agree with everyone's way of being human, everyone deserves a right to a life free from violence. Conversation in my head driving me to the Guyana screening of the Queer Cinema for Palestine No Pride in Genocide Walk into the yard and see all the Pride flags decorating the place. Sijan tree provides shade.. Moringa used by many for various hea...

  LGBTIQA+ Pride  Guyana Trans United held a panel discussion "Prideful Stories: Honouring our history, Confronting Injustice" to start off their Pride 2025 celebrations.  Twinkle Aria and Candacy McEwan led the discussion  which is available on streamyard .   Twinkle shared the story about the protest against the homophobic attitude of the police in June 1969 around the Stonewall Inn in New York. She invoked the memory of Marsha P. Johnson and Sylvia Rivera, two transgender activists who were active in the protests (called riots).  In June 1970, the first Pride marches were held to remember those riots and to advocate for equality.  Guyana In July 1959, in British Guiana, there was a different kind of street activity when as the Sunday Graphic reported, t here was an 'all male wedding' but the police did not stop the cutting of the cake. The shadow of police harassment is reported, even as the transgender and 'gay' community would have gathe...

  The conversation about Intimate Partner Violence in LGBTIQ+ relationships was held on 24 June, 2021. The conversation was held in collaboration with Guyana Rainbow Foundation(Guybow).  Dr Preity Kumar, Asst Professor, Hamilton College, New York  and Colleen McEwan, Executive Director, Guybow shared opening thoughts to lead the discussion.  Carlotta Boodie-Walcott and Vidyaratha Kissoon facilitated the conversation.  Preity shared from the research she had done as part of PhD. Her thesis "Women Lovin’ Women: An Exploration of Identities, Belonging, and Communities in Urban and Rural Guyana" includes a chapter  on the Culture of Violence experienced by the women who shared their stories.  The culture of violence experienced by the women was connected to experiences of early childhood abuse, suicidal thoughts and attempts, non suicidal self harm, sexual violence,  racialised sexual violence , psychological and economic violence. Colleen reflected ...

GuyBow (Guyana Rainbow Foundation) hosted a discussion "LGBT (lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender) rights are Human Rights" on 9 December, 2017. There were presentations from a panel. The presentations were followed by discussions. The panelists were Melinda Janki - Justice Institute of Guyana;  Jairo Rodrigues - Guyana Responsible Parenthood Association and me. Guybow asked me to talk about Hinduism and LGBT rights so as to get other religious perspectives from the usual ones. Melinda Janki spoke about the Universal Declaration of Human Rights and the challenge to minorities in societies which were British colonies. It was noted that even though the British had decriminalised homosexuality for over 50 years, many of the former colonies still held out. She felt that the courts had to be used to bring judgements against discrimination using the existing laws and conventions.There were questions and discussions about discrimination in landlord tenancy, and in employmen...

Image from http://devdutt.com/books/shikhandi-and-other-tales-they-dont-tell-you.html The warrior Arjuna who turns into  the strong woman-dancer Brihanalla to stay in hiding, Krishna who dresses in Radha's clothes to show his love for her, the men who birthed children.. Devdutt Pattanaik has compiled thirty or so stories from Indian traditions which show that there was understanding that gender was not exclusively male or exclusively female and possibly fluid. "Queerness" questions the idea of 'male' and 'female' and Pattanaik uses the story to show that Queerness was familiar in Indian mythology. There are those who are neither male nor female, those who are both male and female and those who move between the two at different times. Each story is told , often in a playful way, and Pattanaik then inserts some notes to discuss the story. The book is light reading on a part of humanity which is oppressed in many parts of the world.

(This is the interactive version of an article which appeared in Diaspora Times International March 2017 Vol 3 Issue 1 , edited by  Rtd Colonel Desmond Roberts. (LGBTIQ – lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, intersex, queer) On Monday 27 February 2017 Georgetown Magistrate Dylon Bess shut Ronnel Trotman out of the Courtroom . Ronnel Trotman, called Petronella, is a transgender Guyanese citizen and was the complainant in an assault case. Less than a week after Guyanese celebrated Mashramani with 'dignity, liberty and greater Unity”, citizen Petronella and other LGBTIQ citizens were reminded that Guyana's Unity excludes them. Magistrate Dylon Bess was not sanctioned by those responsible for the Justice system. The Magistrate is working in a cultural and legal context which says that human beings are born either male or female and that normal is heterosexual. Citizens who did not find themselves in these two categories are born into a State which does not punish p...

The National AIDS Programme Secretariat invited submissions for the National Dialogue on HIV and the Law.  I made this submission for consideration by the Steering Committee. Please feel free to share and use as you see fit. Aim: describe the reason for the application (report a complaint , describe a good practice, (maximum 100 words) ) The aim of this submission is to share a good practice from a project implemented by the municipalities of Linden and New Amsterdam in 2014. This project was referred to the UNDP/HIV Cities project. One of the components was raising awareness in stakeholders about the human rights of sex workers , lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender (LGBT) persons and MSM . The Themes could be Sexual orientation and Gender Identity , Sex Work, Stigma and Discrimination and Access to HIV services. There could be other themes. Description of the facts: (maximum 500 words) (All of the views expressed in this submission...

Saturday morning. Baigan choka and roti at the roti shop on the East Coast.  Some mornings there is vicious cussing and so but it is a nice quiet morning . A 'gay' walks in.. (male to female transgender). Normal occurrence in many parts of 'rural' Guyana where there is acknowledgement that people can be different. A man in shades and with tattoos hails up and there is banter between the two.. the 'gay' playfully brushing his hand on the young man's head before going to eat.  Free space.   Saturday morning. Strange headline in the Chronicle " Can’t fight hate with hate — Simpson calls on Guyanese to reject Islamophobia.  There was a private function hosted by Scheherazade and Kashir Khan who have rejected the violence committed in the name of Islam.  The event was co-hosted with SASOD.   I know the Khan family and I do not believe they have to accept responsibility for anything that any other person does in the name of Islam. I was a member o...

Guarding the exhibits "So many of them are pretty girls, I wonder if they were forced into this lifestyle"... the woman guarding the exhibits in the gallery said. I had asked her what she thought of the exhibition . She had laughed and put one hand on her face - the way that many people do when they hear an unexpected question. We were facing the slide show of powerful images which was part of Zaneili Muholi's :‘Isibonelo/Evidence'.  She points to the images - "that's the artist". The woman said that she had seen one of the films as part of the exhibition and had heard one of the women say that she was encouraged to be a lesbian. I told her that people could be born that way. She said "well, it doesnt matter.. but when I read on the wall, the things which were done to them, that is not good, these things are bad". She was talking about the testimonies on the wall from South African citizens who had experienced the violence. The ra...

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 t...

(17 May is commemorated as "International Day Against Homophobia, Biphobia and Transphobia ", a day for the Worldwide Celebration of Sexual and Gender Diversities ) Quincy McEwan of Guyana Trans United was happy on Saturday 16 May, 2015. Quincy was relieved that there was going to be a change.. the Bishop who approved of "gays on an island" was no longer a Minister. The GTU had mobilised its members to vote. They had different political parties. According to Cracey Fernandes, another member  of GTU, the trans went out in their numbes and "voted like a boss" Quincy did not dress up too much, in case there were problems with matching the appearance on the ID Card. Other trans who voted, said they had no problems with anybody telling them anything. One trans from a rural community said it was no problem dressing normally with makeup and clothes as she normally did. The polling agent was from the village and was able to verify the identification for ...

  Giovanni asks David " ne me laisse pas tomber, je t'en prie ' and I remember the two former loved ones in the early days of love and I say oh rass man James Baldwin. Giovanni Room is a love story which begins at the end with the main man David getting ready to leave the house where he is staying. Baldwin lets you know up front that the story is not going to have a happy ending. David is kicked out of his room. He is an American in Paris. His girlfriend Hella is in Spain.  David meets Giovanni and is attracted though he is not sure of the attraction.  It is the 1950s and the identities of gay/bisexual/homosexual/MSM have not been demarcated. Giovanni tells him they will be friends . Giovanni had also left his girlfriend in Italy. Two men loving/liking each other in Baldwin's France is not going to be easy. David/Baldwin describes the people in the bar where he first met Giovanni - like him and not like him.. with the description of the ...

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...

The old time churches they say had all the frescoes on the ceilings with the semi-nude figures. This church though, has a mural on the ceiling, painted by an artist in the 1970s , about people around the church. The mural has two men holding hands. The first time I came to church was in May 2010. The Lafayette Avenue Presbyterian Church has history. They speak about welcoming people regardless of their sexual orientation - and this kind of inclusivity is not about the kind in which people want gay people to come to church so they could stop sinning and turn straight. A woman who came up afterwards to say she never saw me there before said yes, it was a nice church. She said the lesbian minister had asked her to be an official and that another minister had told her when she admitted to also having Buddhist alliances, that why do Christians believe they have the monopoly on Truth.  The mural on the ceiling, interspersed with the stained glass windows, is supposed to repres...