Transgender Plea For Rights in Bahamas

Got this sent to me on Facebook recently on the Bahamas Trans developments:

Source: Tribune 242

Tori Culmer, right, speaking at the Transgender and Inter Sex Community press conference at the British Colonial Hilton. Also pictured is, left, Alexus D’Marco and Phylicity Smith. Photo: Shawn Hanna/Tribune Staff

By RICARDO WELLS

BAHAMAS Transgender, Intersex United (BTIU) yesterday launched its multi-level equality campaign, “Bahamian Trans Lives Matter”, which seeks to secure equal rights for transgendered Bahamians as the debate about the upcoming gender equality referendum continues.

During a press conference at the Hilton on Tuesday, BTIU representatives called on the Christie administration to ensure that the fundamental rights of all genders of Bahamians - male, female and transgendered - are protected. However, the group stressed that it is not trying to shift the focus of the gender equality referendum.

The group is calling for equal access to healthcare, education and employment without discrimination.

Lead spokesperson for the group, Alexus D’Marco affirmed that members of BTIU, and to a greater extent those in the wider lesbian, bi-sexual, gay and transgender (LBGT) community, are forced to live in unwarranted circumstances due to the confines of socially accepted behaviours in The Bahamas.

According to the self-proclaimed “first lady” of the LGBT community, scores of transgendered and intersex men and women are being discriminated on their jobs, in schools and in other social groupings because of this “well-endorsed” stigma.

“The conversation needed to come about, because discrimination (exists) on all levels. If we are talking about equality we have to go across the board for all Bahamians,” Ms D’Marco said.

“The word equal, that’s the key word. Why are you going to discriminate against one set of people and another set of people get all the privileges? That’s discrimination. I am glad the topic (of the) referendum and all of that has come about because we live in ‘la la land’ in this country. Unless we come forward as humans and Bahamians and stand up for our own rights, things will (never) begin to move forward and change.”

Ms D’Marco labelled those opposing the rights and privileges of transgender and intersex Bahamians as modern-day oppressors.

She said naysayers are opting to hide behind outdated research, refusing to acknowledge transgender and intersex for what it is – a medical condition and not as a sexual orientation.

“Just how they can pick up their collegiate math books and biological books, they can pick up and study (transgender). But, we want to live in ‘la la land’ and keep oppressing people, keep oppressing Bahamians when equality should be across the board,” she said.

Ms D’Marco said the group now has the moral support and backing to come forward and demand what it rightfully deserves - “equality.”

Question four of the upcoming referendum will ask voters to eliminate discrimination based on sex in the Constitution by inserting the word “sex” into Article 26.

Those opposing the bill think that this could one day lead to same-sex marriages, but the government has denied this as a possibility and stressed that the focus is solely on gender equality.

Addressing this particular point, BTIU representatives said they aren’t looking to shift the focus of the equality bills, but they want to use the national conversation on equality to be all encompassing.

BTIU stressed that there are no laws to protect transgender and intersex Bahamians.

Rights

Torri Culmer, a member of the BTIU who is advocating for legal protection for transgender and intersex persons against being terminated from their jobs, stressed that her story proves that the rights of these persons aren’t respected in the Bahamas.

Currently unemployed, Ms Culmer said she was fired from at least four jobs in recent years after it was discovered that she was a transgender woman.

She admitted that when she applied for those jobs, she would do so using her female persona with only her passport and other identification documents indicating that she was born a male.

According to her, there were no issues with these jobs until co-workers or customers that had prior knowledge of her transgender state made a point of it.

“(Employers) find it easier to just let me go, to let a transgender woman go,” she stated.

Furthermore, BTIU lodged concerns for its fastest growing age group - trans youth.

BTIU representatives said trans youth are subjected to bullying in schools and often given religious conversion counseling instead of psychological services specific to transgender and intersex people.

Felicity “Peaches” Smith, an 18-year-old transgender youth, said once she and those around her identified her feminine preferences were not a phase, she was ostracised and ridiculed instead of supported.

Ms Smith said she was run out of high school in the 11th grade.

“I didn’t have anybody to talk to just because of who I (am).

“At the end of the day, no matter who I am, I should not be discriminated (against),” she said.

BTIU contend that youth, once pushed out by family members, are left without homes and unable to finish school.

Officials said these kids often take to street cultures for protection and guidance; and therefore, are preyed upon by older men in both the homosexual and heterosexual communities.

Additionally, the group indicated that access to proper medical care is limited, with many doctors encouraging transgender and intersex people to travel abroad to receive needed medical care.

“There are some things that we need that doctors find themselves discriminating against,” stated Ms D’Marco. “For example, there was one transgender girl, who when another issue going on with her, they asked what medications are you on and she said hormones . . . the doctor looked at her and said ‘What? Who gives you that here?’

“These are the types of things that they face here in this country when they go to the doctor. Everyone can’t afford to hop on a flight to Miami. There are things in the public service sector that we need - healthcare, education and equality,” she added.

LGBT rights advocate Erin Greene said BTIU members should have the right to voice their concerns within the confines of democracy.

“It is very important that other Bahamians, (those) that do not identify with this community take the time to assess what their responsibilities are to this vulnerable minority in the country,” she said.

Ms Greene called on Bahamians to engage the LGBT community respectfully as the matters related to the constitutional referendum play out.

Hey gays! Women matter too!

I had to laugh then feel some pity for some when I saw an article (as re-captioned) from the Gleaner’s In Focus April 24, 2016 and my subsequent entry on his previous piece the Sunday before. The implacable opponents to change continue to respond as expected, Dr Orville Higgins stroke again and he enjoys the thrill as it gets callers to the RJR hotline show he hosts; he insisted on calling those who don’t agree with him as ‘gay bigots’ but I am not surprised as he has been one of those voices who live on the perception of Jamaica being (mis)labelled as the most homophobic thanks to a Time Magazine article; albeit the title of the article was a question and not a statement of fact. 

It is not surprising his ankhs on anything to do with homosexuality. He also chose again as he did last week to use his voice via radio on his show on RJR’s hotline to push the ridiculous position he has taken on women being left out or made invisible towards LGBT rights. There has been a wave of fear-mongering and praying on the public’s ignorance in recent weeks since the JLP has come to office as all kinds of antigay voices crawl out of the woodwork and Dr Higgins is no exception. Then again on our side the mishandling of matters on several fronts in advocacy has left all kinds of negative perceptions of dishonesty which feeds into such opinions formed by Taylor et al.

here is the article in question:

Two bona fide friends read the string of comments after my column, as well as the 'Gay for a day' article by gay-rights advocate Maurice Tomlinson. Of course, the learned attorney, without reading my column, was accusing me of saying being gay was a choice and other unfounded criticisms. Indeed, some of the he-mails bordered on his-teria.

Still, whatever great pains they took to sit on the hard facts, the gay bigots seemed to have forgotten that I was looking on the study that was commissioned by their advocate organisation, J-FLAG.

Nonetheless, I tried long and hard to understand what was 'homophobic' about anyone saying that they were repugned by two men having intimate contact or two women doing same. Not to mention the petty grade-schoolgirl name-calling which cluttered my mailbox afterwards.

Yet, eliciting a second opinion from my aforementioned friends, I canvassed their views, along with others. Much to my surprise, they were even more strident than I am about how repugnant male-male intimacy was. In fact, in a study I am currently undertaking, it was quite a revelation. And herein lies the surprise. My two friends, who use words like 'disgust', 'repulsive' and 'sickening', are female and gay.

Yes, a very large number of gay females just cannot bear the thought of sex involving men. Expressed succinctly by a dear friend of mine, who rolls in the grass at the cheap androcentric attempts to label dislike as hate and homophobia, she declared, "If I cannot stand the idea of a penis involved in sex, how in hell am I going to enjoy or like seeing two?"

Tomlinson, by his own admission, stated that he never liked the idea of heterosexual sex. Therefore, during his brief excursion into male-female wedlock, in order to successfully make love to his wife, he "had to fantasise about men". Is he, therefore, a heterophobe? Does he want to carry out acts of violence against straight couples and want them to disappear off the earth? Does it imply that he wants the legislature to outlaw sex between men and women? I think not. Dislike and hatred are not the same, and that is the main point of my last week's article; and he should have read it.

As regards the fight against HIV/AIDS, I wonder just how committed the 'penilecentric' and 'anuphile' gay advocates are to the protection of the majority of their community. Yes, another inconvenient fact: there are more females than men in this society and the USA, and bet your bottom dollar that there are more gay females than men who have sex with men (MSM) in Jamaica.

Never mind Diana King's shameless attempt to exaggerate and blatantly lie that this society vilifies rapists and abusers of children less than homosexuals. While her revelation about her sexuality did not create the impact and widespread attention that she might have hoped, this utterance barely had an impact on anyone but a Shy Guy. Just check what happens to rapists and paedophiles in prison, and ask the gay prisoners who run large parts of the correctional institutions if I am wrong.

RIDICULOUS

Why is it that female-female sexuality is so unimportant to the male gay voices? In the national database on HIV/AIDS, the data are not collected or presented to reflect transmission among lesbians. This is true for the statistics in the USA and even UNAIDS. It is only now that a small subgroup within Jamaica AIDS Support for Life (JASL) is attempting to gather information, more than 30 years since the virus was first detected in Jamaica.

And as ridiculous as this might sound to the 'gay-from-birth theorists/activists', there are indeed some women who thought that they were gay while in boarding school and college. Some are bisexual and some have, in a manner of speaking, turned their backs on their gay past.

Another subgroup of women (and some men too) engage in transactional sex. Called female sex workers by UNAIDS but judgementally labelled 'prostitutes' by the USA and 'promiscuophobic' Jamaicans, these vulnerable women are a high-risk group.

First of all, being women, they are more prone to being victims of violence. Second, because of the lower status of women, they are less able to negotiate the terms of their sexual engagement, inside and outside of their consensual sexual unions.

Third, their vulnerability adds the risk of human trafficking - a big problem in the USA and a noticeable one in Jamaica.

Finally, perhaps men, who might never have experienced the dynamics of sex with women and natural lubrication, are ignorant, or don't care, that copious amounts of potentially virulent body fluids get produced by aroused females. As a matter of fact, female sex workers also complain of harassment and extortion by a small group of corrupt cops, and other human-rights abuses.

Yet, with sheer hypocrisy and selfishness, male gay advocates argue that the illegality of anal sex (with men and women, too, by the way), or buggery, prevents them from telling their constituents, 'don't bend for a friend without rubber on the end'.

However, hardly anyone, in seeking to protect 'at-risk' groups, seems to think that decriminalising prostitution, which includes women going to other women on 'Back Road', in massage parlours and strip clubs, is as big a deal. I might have only passed through the law school a few times, but the infinitesimal big of law I know tells me that if telling MSMs to 'rubber up' is aiding and abetting the commission of a crime, condom-ing a prostitute is also condoning her crime.

By the way, is anyone following the war in the USA regarding the right of transgender people to use bathrooms of whichever sex/gender they identify with? As horrific as it might be that a man with a functional penis, but dressed as a woman, is using the bathroom with your 10-year-old daughter, can you imagine a female transitioning to male but with an intact vagina surrounded by a bathroom full of 'rusty-back', horny men at a stage show?

I end with the gay for a day challenge, which I graciously decline, because once you go back, you can't turn back.

- Dr Orville Taylor is senior lecturer in sociology at the UWI, a radio talk-show host, and author of 'Broken Promises, Hearts and Pockets'. Email feedback to columns@gleanerjm.com and tayloronblackline@hotmail.com.

While I agree in part that LGBT/HIV advocacy on a whole has certainly left out same gender sex practicing females out of the data collection, programs development and so on Dr Higgins a Sociologist I might add seems to forget that the epidemic hit men first and more dangerously than females but in the same breath more women seem to be testing positive based on the figures we have seen. And that women who have sex with women, WSW are at lesser risk than males who engage in unprotected anal sex. Then to try to use the abhorrence by same gender loving women towards anal sex between men to justify the rift in his eyes is downright dishonest and shows us the measure of the man we are dealing with. I am on record on this blog and elsewhere as to overlooking of same gender women in HIV prevention but not for superfluous reasons as Dr Higgins seems to be doing.

Want more dishonesty the old argument of gay advocates in HIV work claiming they cannot tell gays to use condoms is so dead it shows how behind Dr Higgins is or purports to be in order to give credence to his argument. Then why would there be an adjustment to the push from a full repeal to an amendment while stressing consent? Oh boi. Then he tries to put Diana King’s coming out as public relations tool to gain popularity while overlooking the hypocrisy she was trying to highlight recently with her twitter blast on paedophiles and child abusers.

Yet this is the man who is lecturing to University students who are to become future leaders, intellectual ghetto-ing indeed, Wilmot Perkins was right years ago when he warned us about some of these people with titles but cannot think to save their own skins.

Peace & tolerance

H

IPV with sexual assault; a potent mix

April is observed as Sexual Assault Awareness Month on this blog and in the US and the stories and issues come flying out it is unbelievable at times. Been a little busy as of late with workshops and such and some upcoming changes that directly impacts my operations but here we go; a Facebook group discussion for example brought front and center the issues to do with intimate partner violence wrapped up in misogynistic attitudes but displayed by same gender loving female partners. The issue of butch identified women who seem to adopt assigned male attitudes negative towards women in terms of belittling them, making demands of them sexual which are to be met, power differentials that play out in rigid incorporation of hetero-normative role playing (demanding man versus submissive woman) while buying into gangsterism as defining misogyny.

The recent standoff at a popular strip club between two women I witnessed and the almost boxing ring-like cheering by other men who saw the fracas as an exciting event complete with blow by blow shouts and learned commentary to boot; that incident alone in my mind denotes the challenges and the obvious need for self expression but masculine acting women feel in order to validate their masculinity act like, adopt or project strength via bravado as in the case of marginalized men in Jamaica. This is in the context as well of recent discussions locally and internationally on non binary persons and the changing expressions out there other than the standard LGBTQ and I.

Confirmed and unconfirmed reports still abound and a recent case involving the police sites the challenges that continue to occur.

Sex on demand whether one consents or not

Then there is ‘as you see me give me’ mantra as supported by popular music and indirectly legitimises sexual assault if ever so tendentiously; a woman or even men who are seen as weaker in gay liaisons is obligated in the minds of more aggressive types and there must be no resistance to same. Co-dependencies in liaisons also plays a role I have seen over the years, one party maybe unemployed or lesser powered and is cohabiting with another who is financially stable but sexually starved or preoccupied and seeks to fulfill such needs and tension in a union of sorts. The reciprocal need to please or satisfy the other while supposedly not ruffling feathers causes all other kinds of challenges as well. So because the lesser powered individual is under ‘my roof’ that individual is obligated to open their legs in order to remain in the home if not it’s the highway and this kind of arrangement tends to pop up in so called couch surfing assistance for forcibly evicted or displaced persons who seek or get help under the guise of genuine assistance. This kind of assault issues are not limited to lower-socio economic classes as time has shown that many cases go unreported and often is spoken of (the ones that do get released) years after the fact when persons have moved on and feel more comfortable when there is a feeling that their already lessened powered position won’t be further threatened.

Ignorance plays a role as well on the part of the impacted individual as they may not be able to pick up the signs of a grooming preparatory phase before the onslaught or demands for sex without getting the required consent. Now we hear the education minister raising figures of abuse from the Office of the Children’s Registry, OCR and CISOCA from 2007 to 2015 as 16,000 plus such cases but he never said how many were solved versus unsolved. Why are seeing this scourge becoming such a rampant feature?

Despite campaigns, interventions millions of dollars spent and grants disbursed the situation seems unmoved if not unsolved by such attempts. As visibility of LGBT life continues especially since 2012 on social media and such the issues that were once either hidden or under-reported and still are to a certain extent (I have no doubt) those attendant matters come forth. Is the oppressed while changing its position to holding some power adopting the elements of the oppressor? A recent radio discussion looked at the chicken and egg situation regarding dancehall music for example and whether the influences can be tagged there; but dancehall is merely mimicking life I say on the other hand, subject matter from the genre or out of it don’t just fall from the sky I imagine.

Matters of self worth, self esteem and so on has a lot to do with it my experience has taught me, if one is not confident in who one is then there are close links to the aforementioned co-dependencies which suggests changes in systems in education, raising of children, behaviour change (ongoing but seem ineffective) and mindset change first and foremost, but where is one to begin? With the obvious backwardness as displayed recently at the anti gay group Jamaica Coalition for a Healthy Society JCHS of so called concerns on sex education in schools and a call for a kind of purging of same albeit in an information age then it is no wonder some of our challenges continue; thinking hiding information from minds when said info is a literal finger swipe away on a device (maybe the JCHS may want to censor the internet later) then they are fools frankly.

Where are these voices like JCHS when the very sexual assault and related fears turns up in churches of all places or carried out by pastors on church sisters and the age old issue of clerical abuse via priests? Then comes the rubbish frankly by Dr Wayne West chief protagonist of JCHS that “I don’t want to peep in your bedroom” claiming that the fight is not about consenting adults, then if it is not about peeping into bedrooms so to speak and the false dichotomy about freedom of speech then where else would buggery be mainly committed by said consenting adults?

It is this backwardness and supposedly protecting children in a misguided attempted to purify minds that have kept many in ignorance and hence the sometimes ridiculous debates, accusations and counter accusations of sexualizing children. Does not this same group really sit down and listen to the dancehall lyrics that play on open radio every day? The very violence, sexualization and such are promulgated by the very religious right groups on some moral quest yet find it convenient to deliberately continue to conflates abuse with same gender sex in the continuous efforts to ‘other’ those who are not as they are. With pressures such as this from fanatics and a unaturalizing of same gender loving relations then it is no wonder to me that to gain some legitimacy by adopting negative constructs seen as acceptable elsewhere.

More anon.

Peace & tolerance

H