Disclaimer: The views and opinions expressed by the author(s) do not represent the official position of Barbados TODAY.
The sexual rights movement attempts to liken its cause to the legitimate fight for Women’s Rights and Black Civil Rights, but this argument is more emotive than rational.
Like all other citizens except those who are incarcerated, homosexuals and transgender persons in Barbados have an equal right to vote in elections. They have equal access to public facilities. Literally and metaphorically, they can ride on any bus, drink at any water fountain.
In terms of access to education, I know of no pre-school, primary, secondary or tertiary institution that has turned away a child because either they, or their parents, were homosexual or transgender. At UWI, LGBTQ are championed and celebrated. In fact, on June 30, 2019, the first Pride service was held in the moot court of the Law Faculty.
The LGBTQ community has also been firmly supported by regional institutions and by both the previous and present Government. In 2016 the Caribbean Development
Bank (CDB) took thousands of dollars from its Basic Needs Trust Fund and collaborated with UWI to develop a regional curriculum, ‘Gender Socialization in Early Childhood Education’. The Central Bank of Barbados sponsored a radio series – complete with prizes for listeners – about a transgender ‘coming out’.
LGBT “sensitisation” training for public servants has been taking place for years. In May 2015, a homosexual and his wife/husband were invited by the Ministry of International Business to conduct ‘sensitisation’ sessions for social workers, law enforcement officers and the defence force among other public servants. A panel discussion, ‘How Gay is too Gay, and should they be Invisible?” was held at the Cave Hill Law Faculty. One of the panellists was a law lecturer. At one point, the moderator instructed the all-gay panel to “ignore the religious questions”.
So, from which direction does discrimination and intolerance come?
LGBT have equal access to healthcare and other social services. There are no laws, social policies or principles sanctioning the withholding of social services to anyone, regardless of their sexual preference. Of course, clients are sometimes treated below par at public institutions,
but poor treatment is not exclusive to homosexuals and transgenders.
With respect to crime and violence, statistics do not indicate that the LGBTQ community is particularly targeted, threatened or in need of special police protection. If it were so, the media would happily carry the stories.
Historically, homosexuals have been free to pursue the job or career of their choice. Currently, members of the LGBTQ community can be found in white collar and blue-collar jobs in diverse fields such as politics, journalism, medicine, dentistry, finance, cosmetology, entertainment and so on. They are not absent from education. They get equal pay for equal work. As valued citizens, independent service providers are patronised and lauded according to the quality of their work, not according to their sexuality.
Routinely, because we live in a sin-sick society, life dishes out negative experiences to all of us regardless of whether we are christian or non-christian, disabled, elderly, Black, White, Indian, Rastafarian, Muslim, Hindu, gay or straight. Though there may be isolated cases of unfair treatment towards LGBTQ, this is not the norm; neither is such treatment exclusive to this community. If it is, then can someone – perhaps the Rev. John Rogers – please provide the solid evidence?
Dr. Veronica C. Evelyn
