3 LGBT Forced Evictions in Clarendon a Cause for Concern

It was only earlier this month this blog carried the following: Woman Labelled “Man Royal” Forced to Relocate from a St Catherine Community

Now Confirmed are these latest cases & outcomes:

Two gay men and a same gender loving female in her early 20s are the latest to join the numbers of persons being thrown out of their homes by family members in recent times; these are just cases that have come to hand, there may be more gone unreported or addressed elsewhere, this trio though all hail from one parish that of Clarendon with two from May Pen and one from a small district outside of the town. One of the three persons is now staying at an influentials flat in St Catherine until matters can be settled in a sense and as the female tries to arrange a ride to pick up her belongings as her mother has allowed some time for her to do so.

Other parishes have been seeing their own share of cases many unconfirmed but corroborated which leaves one in doubt yet but Portland, St Catherine, St Ann and St James seem to be the areas that have had the most instances of MSM mostly evicted and transwomen as well.

The SGL female case is the most recent of the three in Clarendon thanks to a friends of hers who alerted me as it was only last weekend when she returned from a sporting event only to be confronted by her mother who said she was told (and she always knew) that her daughter was on Facebook with other girls on photographs and that her lifestyle was wrong, persons have been feeding her information along the whole nine yards. According to the young lady involved she has had run-ins before with her father who resides elsewhere but those had died down somewhat, she was unaware however that other matters were apparently ongoing all this time that it could have led to an ultimatum to have her leave which surprised her. There was an argument some time before on other domestic issues but no hint was given as well to any discomfort of her perceived sexual orientation. We have seen so many cases as this one before where just on the face it it seems normative then comes the surprise.

The young lady who is employed has been making some adjustments in keeping her job while thankfully the news has not reached her employers or co-workers so I do not expect her to be homeless anytime soon which is good news and some relief as those numbers are spiralling out of control. One of our brothers, twenty three years old in this story though is not so fortunate, he was thrown out of his family home from February of this year and kept it down for some time but a lack of steady income and sustenance has left him no choice but to beg literally other community persons, he stayed at my house for a couple days in April but costs did not allow me to continue the assistance for a protracted period as many other community influentials have adopted a shortened assistance when available. Increased bills, a sliding dollar and fiscal prudence has greatly affected this informal type of crisis intervention or community based shelter assistance.

He as I prepare this post is now in Portmore for another short stay opportunity by a friend I begged until some other door is opened which is a difficult way to exist going from hand to mouth so to speak and leaves on feeling disheartened. Thanks so much to that friend (a regular reader of this blog) so much as he was aware of my issue last year in assisting another young man who did not last three days at my pad as he apparently found a thug in my area attractive and brought him to my home without my permission for sexual liaisons which did not sit well with me, so I had to evict him as a matter of principle. I have a policy of not dating or sleeping with “area men” they can become very “sprung” demanding thinking they have one over you.

The second victim in the trio eviction was outed by mistake he reported at home almost a year ago after he returned from a weekend out with friends; he reportedly had women’s clothes in his unpacked bag that he had left in his room on the floor, his mother apparently in causally tidying the house ran into the bag and its contents and waited on him to supposedly cross examine him on the clothes, he claimed she made remarks that he did not have a girlfriend so how could he have female clothes in his possession and for weeks the matter was repeatedly raised in some way, shape or form to his annoyance. Other family members who also told he said as he noticed attitudes from them when they visited or on the phone was distant or different than before.

Even after he discarded the bag and the clothes the matter was still raised and it was during those latter months that the indication that a separation was pending became apparent; the young man however did not take it seriously and thought she was only joking. It was a heated Sunday morning exchange however where the seriousness of the matter was brought home to him as an older brother spoke to him over the phone and warned him to just leave as their mother was not planning on having him stay. Fast forward to the present set of circumstances.

Third victim

Another male who was forcibly evicted in June of this year was also reported in the May Pen are. According to my sources the young man has been the brunt of teasing in his community for some time as he is said to be effeminate and has had run-ins with other community male members who often tell him to stay away from them or their sons implying homo-peadophile intentions by the man. The man who is said to be in his twenties was also slapped with an object of some kind as he left the home jeered and mocked by residents and told by family members not to return for his own safety. This case seems not to be one that was the causation of family members or siblings but more community influenced. As more details come forth and are relevant this post maybe updated but it is clear that this case exists as the female also was able to corroborate the matter as she heard of the issue but could not get in touch with the individual as it was sometime prior to her matter.

His actual whereabouts now is unclear as he was said to be in Kingston upon last check, I am not sure if he has joined the Shoemaker Gully population or downtown.

Forced evictions seem to be on the rise but not surprisingly as there is always a spike in times of heightened public discourse on homosexuality and especially the caustic, inciteful tone and colour of the issues in just four and a half weeks I would not be relaxed and expect to hear of more reports of such evictions. Sadly our goodly advocates who are more interested in getting sex education courses in schools while bypassing the legal authorities do not see a reason to have a proper catchment, half way house or transitional living facility for this kind of long-standing challenges knowing fully well that stigma and discrimination overall produces these visible consequences or displacements and subsequent homelessness.

Since 2014 more than 25 cases of displacements overall have come to hand and that does not include the unreported, unshared and reports to other agencies/individuals unbeknownst to myself. This is a worrying trend and I am particularly concerned about the numbers of lesbians/bisexual women who are factoring in the numbers and in residential areas at that such as Portmore and other housing schemes more so than lower socio economic zones where such evictions are expected due to the levels of homophobia or indeed lesbophobia therein.

Another unconfirmed report of a forced eviction had come to light in Portmore recently as well based on a television newsclip of a buggery arrest matter but details are sketchy as they are when doing this kind of investigative work. Police sources sometime clam up these days on such matters as they claim superiors do not want to create any panic or give persons ideas to incite violence or take matters into their own hands.

Thanks to the community folks who pitched in this time and please help where you can.

Be vigilant be safe

Peace and tolerance

H