Canada has a crucial role to play in the effort to assure full recognition of the human rights of LGBTQI people, in particular for LGBTQI refugees, Jamaican-Canadian activist attorney Maurice Tomlinson told Canadian legislators this week. Continue reading
In the Caribbean, 16 officers from the Royal Barbados Police Force took part in sensitivity training sessions aimed at helping them to improve their understanding LGBTI people and the local LGBTI community, the Nation News of Barbados reports. Continue reading
A new coalition of LGBTQI organizations in the eastern Caribbean is setting its sights on improving the lives of the region’s sexual minorities. The Eastern Caribbean Alliance for Diversity and Equality Inc. (ECADE), which was launched late last year, issued this update: Continue reading
Substantial advances for LGBT rights were achieved in 2016, amid anti-gay violence, arrests and setbacks that marred the past 12 months. Continue reading
In Pakistan, trans activist Didar was shot. She was rushed to the hospital, and her life is out of danger. In Russia, officials shut down BlueSystem, the country’s most popular website for LGBT news and entertainment. See below for more news briefs. Continue reading
If LGBTI rights activists in the Caribbean nation of Antigua & Barbuda mount a legal challenge, the courts there would likely nullify that nation’s ban on sexual relations between men, according to Antigua’s cabinet. But the Antiguan government won’t take such action on its own. As Antigua’s Daily Observer reported: The government has said an … Continue reading
The Caribbean nation of Antigua will soon repeal its law against same-sex intimacy, if the Antiguan minister of social transformation has her way. Minister Samantha Marshall told the local newspaper, the Antigua Observer, that she’s willing to make such a recommendation to the Cabinet. “I have no difficulty in making [such a recommendation],” she said. … Continue reading
Several Caribbean countries with laws against same-sex intimacy are at least discussing the possibility of repealing them. In Belize and Jamaica, those laws are being challenged in court. In Guyana, the prime minister talks about repealing them. In Dominica, the prime minister says they’re not enforced. But sexual minorities suffer from intense social stigma in … Continue reading
The Canadian HIV/AIDS Legal Network reports: Increasing the visibility of LGBTI people and their rights in the Caribbean Two separate, but related events supported by the Canadian HIV/AIDS Legal Network took place in the Caribbean last week: Police LGBTI Sensitization Training in Antigua and Barbuda from November 24–27 and The launch of the Barbados Pride … Continue reading
Gabrielle Bellot, an exiled transgender woman from Dominica, tells how the prize-winning work of exiled gay author Marlon James of Jamaica resonates with her and leads her to thoughts of how much change is needed in Caribbean attitudes toward LGBT people. Excerpts from her commentary in today’s New York Times: On Being Queer in the … Continue reading
