Jamaica

Despite laws criminalising same sex relationships, and a reputation for being one of the most inhospitable places for LGBTI people to live, a well-attended symposium took place to discuss and affirm LGBTI rights in Jamaica, around the International Day Against Homophobia and Transphobia 2014.

The group J-Flag of Jamaica organized a symposium, on the theme of Personality, Religion and Sexual Citizenship, in the week around May 17, 2014. The event, held in Kingston on Friday May 16, facilitated discussion on what citizenship means in Jamaica for LGBT people in Jamaica today, and on the way to a more inclusive Jamaica.

• Man to Man Is So Unjust: Disclaiming Sexual Citizenship in Fundamentalist Jamaica – Prof. Carolyn Cooper, Senior Lecturer, Department of Literatures in English, UWI Mona
• Equal Rights and Justice for All: (Re)Imagining and (Re)Presenting Inclusiveness – Dr. Karen Carpenter, Clinical Sexologist/Psychologist, Caribbean Sexuality Research Institute
• Where Are You From?: Moving from Shame in Search of the Divine – Georgia Love, Training Coordinator, WMW Jamaica (formerly Women’s Media Watch)
• It’s Not About Them, It’s About Us: How Can the Church Turn the Tide in the Sexuality Debate – Rev. Margaret Fowler, Minister, Hope United Church