Why Some LGBT Youths In Jamaica Are Forced To Call A Sewer Home

[DriftingCrow]

http://www.buzzfeed.com/lesterfeder/how-jamaicas-sodomy-laws-drive-gay-teens-into-the-sewers-of
Author: J. Lester Feder Source: BuzzFeed

Young LGBT Jamaicans are chased out of their communities by family and neighbors using vigilante justice to enforce the country's laws against homosexual conduct. Now police are trying to push them out of their shelter of last resort.

But Murdock's televised remarks following the Sunday raid left the impression the kids were unwanted for an entirely different reason [than theft]: "The aim of this operation was to remove men of diverse sexual orientation who continue to plague the New Kingston area."

On the far left, holding the pink handbag, is Davel. He was the youngest of the group — 15 — when his siblings forced him out of his mother's house five years ago. Davel now speaks with a kind of appreciation about the daily beatings his brother used to administer hoping to scare him straight: "He wasn't really beating me to damage me. He was saying, '[This] is Jamaica' ... and he [was] showing me that when I get older and other guys come at me, they won't have any mercy."

[Some activists] are calling the [proposed] shelter Dwayne's House, in honor of the trans youth killed in Montego Bay in July, and launched a fundraising campaign this month. They estimate that it will take $150,000 to establish a shelter to house 50 youths and will cost a monthly $450 per resident to keep it running.

[Anatta]

Kia Ora,

It is a real sad state of affairs...
My biological father was Jamaican but lived most of his adult life in the UK (he arrived in the UK during the second world war)...

I visited my relatives in Jamaica shortly before I started my transition, fortunately I didn't tell any of them whilst I was there, however once I had made up my mind and returned to NZ, I decided to tell them, they abruptly broke all contact with me (which is no skin off my nose)...Jamaicans are happy and gay, just so long as one does not take happy and gay to the next level...

However I often wonder how my biological (Jamaican born) father would have taken it, I would like to think he was more tolerant than his fellow country men...

Many LGBTQ Jamaicans seek political  asylum in the UK and other commonwealth countries...

There was a  theory going around a fews years back as to why so many Jamaicans are so homophobic, it goes along the lines of, in the days of slavery many whites would sodomise  the male slaves as a form of punishment (possibly sadistic punishment on behalf of the white slave owners)...Nowadays anything that relates to homosexual, is deeply entrenched in the Jamaican psyche and  is considered abhorrent, bringing up painful and humiliating memories of  past transgressions against their ancestors ...

Meta Zenda