Gender Variances and Sexual Diversity in the Caribbean: Perspectives, Histories, Experiences - Softcover

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Marjan de Bruin is Chair of the technical working group Equity, Diversity and Inclusion, the University of the West Indies, Mona, Jamaica.

R. Anthony Lewis is Associate Professor, Language Teaching and Research Centre, the University of Technology, Kingston, Jamaica.

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Introduction
Marjan de Bruin and R. Anthony Lewis

Over the last two decades, the question of lesbian, gay, bisexual and trans- gender (LGBT) identities and the politics associated with them have advanced significantly on the global stage. The protection of the human rights of LGBT citizens has become common cause across multiple national, regional and international organizations, among them, the Inter-American Court of Human Rights. The Caribbean – including the Commonwealth Caribbean, marked as it is by colonial-era legislation and attitudes that proscribe same- sex activities and nonnormative gender expression – has joined this emerging rights discourse. In fact, many Commonwealth Caribbean countries have in recent times become home to organizations focusing on LGBT issues. On 10 December 2018, for instance, Jamaica’s J-FLAG, the country’s best-known LGBT rights organization, celebrated its twentieth anniversary, while Guyana’s Society against Sexuality Orientation Discrimination marked its fifteenth anniversary a week later. In the last five years or so, too, LGBT pride events across the region have increased – again, most remarkably for the Commonwealth Caribbean – with many taking on a semipublic nature, and laws criminalizing same-sex intimacy have been challenged in Belize and Trinidad and Tobago; in Guyana, the law against cross-dressing has been declared unconstitutional.

Notwithstanding progress on these multiple fronts, much of the Common- wealth Caribbean has remained relatively unwavering in its resistance to attempts to create a more visible space for LGBT citizens and residents. The churches of that part of the region, coalescing mainly under umbrella para- church organizations, such as Jamaica Churches Action Uniting Society for Emancipation (Jamaica CAUSE), Belize Action/Family Forum, and TT CAUSE, have staged mass rallies against what has been dubbed the “gay agenda” – from Belize to Jamaica to Barbados and Trinidad and Tobago. And while there have been noticeable and meaningful steps towards openness and tolerance, including a significant decline in the output of anti-gay Jamaican dancehall music, some Caribbean spaces remain especially difficult to navigate for LGBT citizens, many of whom swell the ranks of diaspora groups in Canada, the United Kingdom, the United States and, increasingly, the Nether- lands, through semi-voluntary or forced migration. The existence of LGBT citizens and residents of the region thus remains marked by the struggle for place and voice in an improving but relatively hostile environment. Furthermore, their lived experiences remain understudied and inadequately documented by the academy. In this regard, Kempadoo (2009) observes:
Despite the mountain of grey documents that include some mention of sexual praxis (reports, conference papers, theses, and policy briefings) and the growing number of more accessible documents (published journal articles, electronic articles, chapters in books, media reports and books), there is little consistency in existing studies, thus little basis for comparison cross-ethnically, cross-nationally, or regionally. Repeti- tion of ideas through multiple reviews of studies and several small-scale qualitative research efforts that are not replicable is also apparent. (p. 2).

A decade since Kempadoo’s publication, little has changed.

The goal of this book is to update some of the existing work and work in progress on minority genders and sexualities in the Caribbean – particularly Jamaica – as well as to examine new insights on the fundamental questions of how sexual orientation and gender identities and performance in the region can be understood and differentiated. In this way, the book seeks to deepen the understanding of the lives, challenges and opportunities for those in the region who do not fall into the traditional binaries of heterosexual males or females – living in spaces where they are often treated as “socially excluded family outcasts” (Carr, 2009, p. 74).