Pride TT is call­ing for leg­isla­tive re­form to se­cure equal rights and pro­tec­tions for mem­bers of the LGBTQI+ com­mu­ni­ty. The or­gan­i­sa­tion held a peace­ful protest out­side Par­lia­ment at Wood­ford Square yes­ter­day to mark the start of its eighth an­nu­al Pride Month of Ac­tiv­i­ties.

Tra­cy Shep­pard, di­rec­tor of Pride TT and co-chair of this year’s Pride TT Month of Events, said the protest is held every year “just for vis­i­bil­i­ty.”

“We just want to get the Equal Op­por­tu­ni­ty Act amend­ed so that we can have equal rights for all of our mem­bers of the com­mu­ni­ty be­cause equal rights are hu­man rights,” she said.

Shep­pard al­so re­ferred to re­cent de­vel­op­ments in the Ja­son Jones case and called for con­sti­tu­tion­al changes.

“There are al­so some lit­tle claus­es in the old Con­sti­tu­tion that need to be amend­ed like the sav­ings clause that caused the Ja­son Jones case that he brought against Trinidad and To­ba­go to be re­cent­ly re­versed,” she said.

“The judges ruled that that re­al­ly wasn’t a case for the law courts—it was re­al­ly a case for the Par­lia­ment to fix these claus­es.”

Shep­pard said there were no en­gage­ments with gov­ern­ment or op­po­si­tion mem­bers dur­ing the protest.

“I did see Min­is­ter Alexan­der, Philip Alexan­der. He did come across and speak. He asked me who’s our line min­is­ter, which was quite fun­ny be­cause we don’t have a line min­is­ter. We don’t have no­body from the gov­ern­ment that’s ever come and ... say that they will do any­thing,” she said.

Shep­pard said the group in­tends to write to Prime Min­is­ter Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar.

“We in­vite them to join us on our pa­rade. Any min­is­ter is wel­come,” she said. The pub­lic Pride Pa­rade is sched­uled for Ju­ly 20. It will start at Phase 2 Pan Yard, cir­cle Wood­brook, and end with a pride fair fea­tur­ing artists and sup­port­ing NGOs.”

Shep­pard al­so raised safe­ty con­cerns for mem­bers of the com­mu­ni­ty.

“We’re out in small num­bers to­day and that’s be­cause peo­ple are afraid to be vis­i­ble,” she said. “We want peo­ple to be safe ... peo­ple when they vis­it health cen­tres that no mat­ter what their gen­der ori­en­ta­tion is that they will re­ceive the same ser­vices as any­body else.”

She said the T&T Po­lice Ser­vice con­tin­ues to pro­vide sup­port dur­ing the Pride Pa­rade.

“The po­lice come out … they do send po­lice of­fi­cers in uni­form along the pa­rade route to make sure that we are safe and we are not re­ceiv­ing these kind of threats that we are to­day.”