UWI lecturer puzzled at reaction

Members of the LGBT community dance to celebrate after India’s top court struck down a colonial-era law that made homosexual acts punishable by up to 10 years in prison.
Members of the LGBT community dance to celebrate after India’s top court struck down a colonial-era law that made homosexual acts punishable by up to 10 years in prison.

Angelique Nixon, lecturer at the Institute for Gender and Development Studies at the University of the West Indies in St Augustine said she did not understand why people were making such a big deal of the new Market Facts and Opinion (MFO) survey on Social Values.

She said it was important to remember that it was a very small sample, 600 out of 1.5 million. She did not believe it was representative of TT’s population which, she believed was growing in tolerance and acceptance of LGBT+ issues.

The survey said 83 per cent of respondents were “in strong disagreement” with the legalisation of same sex relationships, and 62 per cent said they would not rent to a same-sex couple. However, she noted that the 2014 Caribbean Development Research Services (CADRES) survey stated that 78 per cent of Trinidadians disagreed with discriminating against gays. “I wonder why people want to focus on a poll that is a very small sample. I think that it is significant that we’re having these conversations and the poll touches on topics that should be further examined. We need more research.”

In addition, 68 per cent of respondents found it acceptable to teach sex education in primary schools. The survey report stated: The three ‘hot button’ items among the social values tested are Same Sex relationships, Extra-marital affairs and Abortion. These issues had approximately 80 per cent of all respondents describing them as ‘totally unacceptable’. This speaks to a conservative country. Surprisingly, more than two thirds of the respondents were in favour of having sex education taught in the primary schools. This is not usually the mark of a conservative country.

However, Nixon said she was not surprised. She said sex education was not about same-sex education. “It includes reproductive health, learning about your body, and yes, hetero-sexuality. It makes sense that people want children to get sex education. It contributes to a host of really important development factors for society, the community, and cultural understanding of self.”

She said the poll basically showed there were different opinions, disagreements and levels of acceptance. “The April High Court ruling (that the buggery law was unconstitutional) has brought a lot of these issues directly into the limelight. We have a lot of religious leaders commenting and it has created a lot of polarizing, moral panic, and fear. We should all remain calm and share the nation. People deserve rights and protections. This is about people wanting to live and love freely.”

Luke Sinnette, a social worker with the LGBT NGO, Friends for Life, told Newsday what particularly caught his attention was the data about renting to gay couples, and the 57 per cent who indicated it would be “highly upsetting” if their child told them he/she was gay or a lesbian.

“I know, particularly after the verdict, people began to be evicted because, I guess, people wanted to demonstrate their loyalty to their religion. You know you have that pendulum swing, if something is pushed too far to the right it swings way to the left or vice versa. So it could be just a reaction to the court’s ruling or it could be how people feel in general. I don’t know.”

He said, as an organisation offering social service and crisis intervention, Friends for Life had been trying to find accommodations for evicted LGBT people. “It echoes the need for us to develop a better solution for housing security for LGBTQIA persons.”

He added that the NGO was in the process of doing social research on family support and, so far, it showed similar results as the MFO regarding children coming out to parents or finding out their children were gay.

“In our survey we see that the people who came out expressed that their biggest deal was family acceptance. It was much more important than if their friends or co-workers accepted them. If their family did not accept them it was a strong determinant as to how well or how badly they did in their life afterward.”

He said if the MFO data was correct and so many parents react negatively to their children being gay, he was scared for those children.

He said if the children were put out of the family home it affected whether or not they continued attending school, if the atmosphere at home was negative they may leave home as soon as they become a legal adult and accept a low-level job to survive, and it affected the way they formed and maintained relationships.

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