By: Malina Seenarine
Jemaine Norton (they/them) was a teacher for five years in their home country of Guyana before moving to Brooklyn last July. Norton who identifies as gender non-conforming remembers being mocked and tortured in school. Their peers would say they were “too girlie”, or “too feminie” and call them “auntie man”, a derogatory term in the Caribbean for gay men. Throughout their time as an educator, Norton tried to provide a safe space to their grade school students who identify as LGBTQ+, something they did not feel they had growing up.
Norton experienced animosity from their teaching colleagues who criticized how they taught dance, saying that only ‘gays’ teach like that and went as far as accusing them of wanting a relationship with their students.
“Things like that have turned my whole spirit right from me from actually continuing in the system,” said Norton.
Guyana is the only country in South America where “homosexual acts” are still illegal. While these laws are uncommon in most of the Americas, laws against “buggery” (sodomy) can be found in many Caribbean countries due to the residual effects of British colonization.
Guyanese law states that “everyone who commits “buggery”, either with a human being or with any other living creature, shall be guilty of a felony and liable to imprisonment for life.”
In twenty-five interviews with people in Guyana who identify as LGBTQ+ from the book Envisioning Global LGBT Human Rights: (Neo)colonialism, all of them said they experienced violence in public spaces in Georgetown, the capital of Guyana. They also expressed that they experienced harassment from the police and they all agreed that their LGBTQ+ identity “situated them in disadvantaged positions where they had limited, less or no access to goods, resources and opportunities as a result of the embedded stigmas that shape local social, political and economic institutions in Guyana.”
There are around 140,000 Guyanese residents currently living in NYC. A majority of them live in Richmond Hills, Queens, and the neighborhoods of Flatbush and Canarsie in Brooklyn. The Guyanese community is the second largest foreign-born group of immigrants in Queens.
After moving to New York City, Norton joined a support group for LGBTQ+ people of the Caribbean diaspora, called Unchained.
“I was kinda dominating, I wanted to speak because of how comfortable they have made me,” said Norton, who described themselves as shy, about their participation in the last meeting they attended in Queens.
Unchained meeting. Photo provided by: Sai Ali.
The meetings are held on the first Monday of every month in Queens and the last Monday of every month in Brooklyn, both of which they attend.
Unchained is hosted by the Caribbean Equality Project, a community-based nonprofit that advocates for LGBTQ+ Caribbean immigrants. The organization was founded by Mohamed Q. Amin (he/they), a Guyanese native, in response to the anti-LGBTQ+ hate in Richmond Hills, Queens.
“It’s been a mix of community support dashed with a little bit of colonial homophobia, dashed with hate violence and cultural hate speech, mixed with a little bit of street harassment every day,” said Amin about the response from the community.
Unchained began in 2015, the first program organized by the Caribbean Equality Project. Members come together to talk about their experiences, topics that span generational trauma, the immigration process and intimacy.
“We’ve always tried to tailor the group to what is going on with the members or what is affecting them,” said Sai Ali (she/her), one of the facilitators at Unchained group in Queens who is a part of the Guyanese diaspora.
Ali became acquainted with Amin after she joined SALGA, a community-based organization for the South Asian queer community. She attended her first support meeting back in 2016, a couple of days after Trump had been elected president. She had never been in a room with “ a bunch of brown, South Asian LGBTQ people before.” All the participants were upset at the election results but Ali came mainly because she was trying to find support for her transition. She was struggling with her mental health.
When it was her turn to speak she was honest about why she was there. The members were very supportive.
“I just received such an outpouring of love,” said Ali. “From there, I met a lot of amazing people who really took me under their wing, gave me support and were there for me.”
Portrait of Sai Ali. Photo provided by: Sai Ali.
By September 2018, Ali was running the Unchained support group in Queens. Ever since then the group has grown. They have been able to offer food and metro cards during the meetings as well as referrals to short-term counseling and immigration.
Ali says that while the people that participate in meetings have a lot of “trials and tribulations” she tries to make it a place of positivity.
“That space is also where we share a lot of joy, a lot of humor, a lot of stories, positive stories, and people become friends.”
In Norton’s short time in New York City, they said they feel they are being treated a lot better than back in Guyana. They have received mental health care but, feel like they still have to watch their back.
“I still have the fear of someone having to attack me,” said Norton. “I am still scared and so fearful to be like the real me.”
Norton is looking up and believes this fear will ease in time.
Progress is being made in Guyana when it comes to LGBTQ+ rights. In 2018, a law banning cross-dressing that was used to criminalize transgender people was overturned.
In 2018, Guyana held its very first gay pride parade, the first of its kind in the Caribbean.