Lisa Allen-Agos­ti­ni

I feel the last fron­tier in dis­crim­i­na­tion is for we to ac­cept gay and les­bian peo­ple as just peo­ple. Long-time, when you was black you couldn't do cer­tain work and peo­ple used to treat In­di­an peo­ple bad. (Some peo­ple, like my friends Ray­mond Ram­char­i­tar and Prof Sel­wyn Cud­joe, go ar­gue that In­di­an peo­ple and black peo­ple still on the fringes, but that is an­oth­er sto­ry.)

Nowa­days no­body can't stand up in pub­lic and tell their chil­dren they don't want them to be with So-and-So be­cause they black or they white or they In­di­an. That is mad­ness!

Yet them same peo­ple could cut their chil­dren tail, throw them out in the road and give them all kin­da pres­sure be­cause them chil­dren gay or les­bian. Land­lord could put out a ten­ant be­cause he gay. Peo­ple could say and do any­thing to gay, les­bian, bi­sex­u­al and trans­gen­dered peo­ple (GLBT, for short) be­cause the law al­low it. I does make joke and say if my daugh­ters come and tell me they gay I go beat it out of them–not be­cause I against ho­mo­sex­u­als but be­cause that life so hard. I would nev­er want for my child to walk in­to a room and con­ver­sa­tion stop be­cause she is the one every­body else was bad-talk­ing be­cause she gay. I would nev­er want peo­ple to look at she and tell she in she face that be­cause she is a les­bian they can't hire she for a work, whether is Cen­tral Bank Gov­er­nor, tea la­dy or Chief Whip. I would nev­er want my child to feel the small and large in­dig­ni­ties that gay peo­ple does go through every day here in this sweet T&T.

I re­cent­ly bounce up a old friend on the In­ter­net, a girl I know from pri­ma­ry school. She liv­ing quite in Ohi-oho, out in one of them far place in Amer­i­can what you doesn't hear about at all, and some­how I feel is be­cause that is the fur­thest you could get from T&T and we small-mind­ed, ho­mo­pho­bic, un­char­i­ta­ble pub­lic at­ti­tude to­wards ho­mo­sex­u­al­i­ty. I say pub­lic, be­cause is a stand­ing joke in the gay com­mu­ni­ty that them same peo­ple who stand­ing against it in pub­lic cruis­ing through Wood­brook look­ing for rough trade when the night come. Here, like every­where, we have a thriv­ing un­der­ground gay world where plen­ty de­cent mar­ried men does be shak­ing their waist with oth­er men while their wife home sleep­ing. I not judg­ing them for be­ing gay, even if they on the "down low," as they does call it. I judg­ing all of we for this ridicu­lous per­sis­tence with hold­ing gay peo­ple in con­tempt when in fact their be­ing ho­mo­sex­u­al have noth­ing to do with we.

Why you feel it have man on the down low? One of the rea­sons is that the shame of be­ing gay could ru­in their ca­reer, ru­in their life. By we at­ti­tude we mak­ing it eas­i­er to per­pet­u­ate dis­crim­i­na­tion in the work­place and dis­crim­i­na­tion with health­care, in ways that we would nev­er al­low for oth­er kind of peo­ple. I was very proud the oth­er day to see that some heads in the GLBT com­mu­ni­ty in T&T come out and form a or­gan­i­sa­tion name the Coali­tion Ad­vo­cat­ing for In­clu­sion of Sex­u­al Ori­en­ta­tion (Caiso). Caiso send out a press re­lease cou­ple weeks ago, with a quote from one of the mem­bers, David DK Soomarie, say­ing, "Our vi­sion is to build T&T in­to a de­vel­oped na­tion in its treat­ment of sex­u­al ori­en­ta­tion and gen­der iden­ti­ty. GLBT peo­ple are ful­ly hu­man, ful­ly cit­i­zens. We're tax­pay­ers.

"And our coun­try will nev­er achieve de­vel­oped na­tion sta­tus when our Gov­ern­ment lead­ers can stand up bold­ly and de­clare that they in­tend to leave out and treat as sec­ond-class whole groups of cit­i­zens." They have a hard row to hoe. One thing they have to do is to change the laws on ho­mo­sex­u­al sex (it il­le­gal, even though it not il­le­gal to be GLBT); an­oth­er thing is to get the GLBT com­mu­ni­ty recog­nise as peo­ple in the Na­tion­al Gen­der Pol­i­cy and Ac­tion Plan. As Caiso point out in the re­lease, Gov­ern­ment sign a res­o­lu­tion from the Or­gan­i­sa­tion of Amer­i­can States ear­ly in June, say­ing that it go pro­tect GLBT peo­ple and ac­tivists from vi­o­lence. The res­o­lu­tion vow "to con­demn acts of vi­o­lence and re­lat­ed hu­man rights vi­o­la­tions com­mit­ted against in­di­vid­u­als be­cause of their sex­u­al ori­en­ta­tion and gen­der iden­ti­ty... [and] to urge states to en­sure that acts of vi­o­lence and hu­man rights vi­o­la­tions com­mit­ted against in­di­vid­u­als be­cause of sex­u­al ori­en­ta­tion and gen­der iden­ti­ty are in­ves­ti­gat­ed and their per­pe­tra­tors brought to jus­tice."

So when min­is­ters of gov­ern­ment stand up in pub­lic plat­form and say they not study­ing GLBT peo­ple or is­sues and their hu­man rights, they go­ing against what they own Gov­ern­ment promise to do. Sex­u­al­i­ty is not the on­ly thing that does make we who we is. But if we can't be we­self in pub­lic, we not on­ly do­ing dam­age to we own self but to oth­er peo­ple who watch­ing we. It have lit­tle boys and girls right now grow­ing up who want to dead be­cause they feel they can't face the world as a GLBT, and is them lives and souls we need to save.