Janielee Kel­ly

Stu­dent,

Hugh Wood­ing Law School

This ar­ti­cle ex­am­ines some of the laws in Trinidad and To­ba­go as they re­late to or im­pact on les­bian and gay peo­ple. Many of the laws ap­pear to be in­tol­er­ant of or sim­ply do not af­ford rights to the LGBT com­mu­ni­ty which oth­ers have and en­joy.

Dis­pelling a com­mon mis­con­cep­tion­re­gard­ing­ho­mo­sex­u­al­i­ty

A com­mon mis­con­cep­tion is that a per­son's sta­tus as a ho­mo­sex­u­al is against the law. How­ev­er, there is no law that deems ho­mo­sex­u­al­i­ty il­le­gal. There are, how­ev­er, laws that deem bug­gery an act of­ten as­so­ci­at­ed with ho­mo­sex­u­al­i­ty il­le­gal.

An­ti-Sodomy Laws

Sec­tion 13 (2) of the Sex­u­al Of­fences Act Chap. 11:28 de­fines bug­gery as sex­u­al in­ter­course per anum by a male per­son with a male per­son or by a male per­son with a fe­male per­son. Sec­tion 13 (1) makes bug­gery an of­fence and makes any per­son who is found guilty of bug­gery li­able on con­vic­tion to im­pris­on­ment–

�2 if com­mit­ted by an adult on a mi­nor, for life;

�2 if com­mit­ted by an adult on an­oth­er adult, for 25 years; and

�2 if com­mit­ted by a mi­nor, for five years.

In ad­di­tion, there are al­so laws that re­strict ho­mo­sex­u­al cou­ples' abil­i­ty to get mar­ried in Trinidad and To­ba­go.

Laws gov­ern­ing­mar­riage are lim­it­ed to het­ero­sex­ual­mar­riage (male­and fe­male)

While the Mar­riage Act Chap. 45:01 does not ex­press­ly spec­i­fy that par­ties to a mar­riage must be male and fe­male, Sec­tion 13 (1) (c) of the Mat­ri­mo­ni­al Pro­ceed­ings and Prop­er­ty Act Chap. 45:51 pro­vides that a mar­riage shall be void on the ground that the par­ties are not re­spec­tive­ly male and fe­male.

What does this mean for same-sex cou­ples?

This has an im­pact on the every­day lives of same-sex cou­ples who wish to be mar­ried but are pre­vent­ed from do­ing so by law. Un­mar­ried same sex part­ners have:

�2 a lack of rights to in­her­it prop­er­ty from their part­ner un­less a will is writ­ten;

�2 a lack of eco­nom­ic ben­e­fits which spous­es are en­ti­tled to by virtue of their mar­riage; and

�2 a lack of next of kin rights since a part­ner in the re­la­tion­ship is not giv­en the sta­tus of wife or hus­band who is able to make im­por­tant le­gal de­ci­sions on the oth­er's be­half (for ex­am­ple when one part­ner is in­ca­pac­i­tat­ed).

Im­mi­gra­tion

Gays and les­bians who are not cit­i­zens or res­i­dents of Trinidad and To­ba­go fall with­in a class of peo­ple who are pro­hib­it­ed from en­ter­ing the coun­try.

Sec­tion 8 (1) (e) of the Im­mi­gra­tion Act Chap. 18:01 pro­vides that pros­ti­tutes, ho­mo­sex­u­als or peo­ple liv­ing on the earn­ings of pros­ti­tutes or ho­mo­sex­u­als, or peo­ple rea­son­ably sus­pect­ed as com­ing to Trinidad and To­ba­go for these or any oth­er im­moral pur­pos­es, are pro­hib­it­ed from en­ter­ing the coun­try.

Al­though it ap­pears that this law is rarely en­forced, it re­mains on the law books. The sig­nif­i­cant dis­crim­i­na­tion that would re­sult if it were en­forced is read­i­ly ap­par­ent."Sex­u­al ori­en­ta­tion" not in­clud­ed in Equal Op­por­tu­ni­ty Act

De­spite the fact that the Equal Op­por­tu­ni­ty Act Chap. 22:03 is the main piece of leg­is­la­tion in Trinidad and To­ba­go de­signed to pro­tect all cit­i­zens from cer­tain kinds of dis­crim­i­na­tion, "sex­u­al ori­en­ta­tion" is ex­plic­it­ly ex­clud­ed from the sta­tus­es pro­tect­ed un­der Sec­tion 3 of the Act.

This means that gays, les­bians, bi­sex­u­als and trans­sex­u­als are not pro­tect­ed against dis­crim­i­na­tion by laws that were de­signed to do just that.

n This col­umn is not le­gal ad­vice. If you have a le­gal prob­lem, you should con­sult a le­gal ad­vis­er.