CCJ tweets: No date set for transgender ruling

The Trinidad-based Caribbean Court of Justice (CCJ) Monday said no date has yet been set for its ruling in a case challenging the constitutionality of a law that criminalises wearing attire of a different gender in public for an “improper purpose” in Guyana.

In a tweet on its official Twitter account, the CCJ said it noted “that there is some miscommunication regarding the McEwan, Seon Clarke, Joseph Fraser, Seyon Persaud versus the Attorney General of Guyana matter” and that “the date for the judgment is not yet set”.

Four transgender Guyanese women have asked the CCJ – Guyana’s final appellate court - to strike down an 1893 post-slavery vagrancy provision which led to their convictions in 2009.

The court reserved its ruling in June.

The four women have challenged a ruling of Guyana’s Court of Appeal which dismissed their case, in which they contended that country’s colonial vagrancy law discriminated against them and violated equality provisions in the Constitution.

Gulliver (Quincy) McEwan, Angel (Seon) Clarke, Peaches (Joseph) Fraser and Isabella (Seyon) Persaud were charged and fined in 2009 for wearing women’s clothing for an improper purpose under Section 153 (1) (XLVII) of the Summary Jurisdiction (Offences) Act Chapter 8:02 – an 1893 vagrancy law.

They say the law violates their right to the protection of the law.