Queer Caribbean Liberation Collective returns to the West Indian Day Parade to Demand Justice for Trans Lives in Guyana and Caribbean Region

By: Mohamed Q. Amin, CaribbeanEqualityProject.org| Photo courtesy: Richard Louissaint

Brooklyn, NY: On Monday, September 2, Caribbean Equality Project, as the leading organization of the Queer Caribbean Liberation Collective, the only LGBTQ+ contingent in the 2024 West Indian Day Parade, marched to demand action, accountability, and justice in response to a string of murders of transgender Guyanese women in the Caribbean region.

The march reminds Caribbean patrons of the senseless homophobic and transphobic violence in Guyana and the Caribbean region. The 150+ community members, coalition partners, and activists marched to amplify Caribbean LGBTQ+ representation in front of thousands of spectators and millions of online viewers, celebrating Caribbean cultural heritage. The Carnival Road has always been a place of resistance, centering a history of fighting for freedom and celebrating Caribbean resilience. Carrying powerful demand posters with messages calling for a repeal of Guyana’s archaic post-colonial laws that continue to harm LGBTQ+ people, the contingent increased visibility and inclusivity for LGBTQ+ people at one of North America’s largest Caribbean cultural celebrations.

Dressed in bejeweled Carnival costumes, Tiffany Jade Munroe, the Trans Justice Coordinator of Caribbean Equality Project and Trans activist Twinkle A. Paul led the Queer Caribbean Liberation Collective contingent down Eastern Parkway, chanting “Justice for Guyanese Trans Lives” and “No Justice, No Peace.” The two Guyanese trans women, who are asylum seekers, migrated to New York City for safety and survival—fearing the fate of their fellow murdered Trans Guyanese sisters.

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“I left Guyana after my parents abandoned me and experienced homelessness. Guyana inherited archaic colonial laws, religious bigotry, police brutality, and oppressive practices from its colonial rulers. The country’s anti-LGBTQ laws are deeply rooted in a history of slavery and indentureship. They breathe selective religious morality, cultivate power and control practices, leading to a lack of human rights protection. Today, homophobia, transphobia, exclusion, and violence against LGBTQ+ individuals are legitimized with no accountability, which disproportionately impacts transgender people,” said Tiffany Jade Munroe.

Twinkle A. Paul, a graduate of John Jay College of Criminal Justice, said, “How many more transgender people must run away, be systematically ignored, be maligned, die, and be beaten? The government of Guyana and the opposition are all complicit, and their silence and inactions uphold injustices, normalizing violence and invalidating LGBTQ+ lives. It is unequivocally the responsibility of the Guyanese government to abolish colonial inherited laws that continue to claim LGBTQ+ futures.”

Tiffany Jade Munroe, Mohamed Q. Amin, and Twinkle A. Paul. Photo by Richard Louissaint

An epidemic of transphobia has claimed the lives of six transgender women in horrific acts of hate and violence over 12 years in Guyana, most recently as two women since the start of the summer. To date, there has been no action or investment in any investigation by Guyana’s People’s Progressive Party/Civic (PPP/C). The current party in power and religious leaders have yet to condemn these senseless and brutal killings of these Guyanese citizens.

At the 57th annual West Indian Day Parade, after seeing the golden arrow flying high by marchers of the Queer Caribbean Liberation Collective, Susan Rodrigues, a Minister within the Ministry of Housing and Water in Guyana, and Oneidge Walrond, the Minister of Tourism, Industry, and Commerce, two prominent Guyanese politicians appointed by President Irfaan Ali, stopped to take a picture with the group. However, after reading the messages on the Guyanese LGBTQ+ diasporic community demand posters, they quickly walked away. However, the two Ministers representing the Republic of Guyana’s People’s Progressive Party/Civic (PPP/C) escape was intercepted by Mohamed Q. Amin, Founder and Executive Director of Caribbean Equality Project, who hand-delivered a press release detailing the organization’s Constitutional amendments to the Government of Guyana, as a call to action to protect LGBTQ+ people, police accountability, and Justice for Guyanese Trans Lives. Amin said, “We are calling on the Guyana government to protect trans people. Six trans people in Guyana have been killed in the last 12 years. We expect our president, ministers, and especially our LGBTQ Guyanese people in positions of power like yourself, who come to the diaspora to protect all of us so we can come back home. Our contingent is made of 90% Guyanese asylum seekers who left their country because they were not safe.”

Most recently, on Saturday, August 3, a transgender woman known to her community as Radica was murdered at the Mahaica Community Center. Radica’s abandoned body was discovered in a pool of blood with multiple stab wounds. Her death comes just less than a month after a gunman fatally shot and killed Shawn Simon, a young and vibrant Afro-Guyanese transgender woman, on July 11, 2024. Radica and Simon are not the first cases of murder. In 2013, Wesly Holder was tortured, and her lifeless body was dumped in a dark alley. To date, no one has been held accountable, and her death remains a mystery. In 2014, Jason John, also known as Jada, and Carlyle Sinclair, called Tyra, were murdered with the assistance of workers who were employees of Mekdeci Machinery & Construction Inc. (MMC), a privately owned security company. In 2015, again another Trans sibling, Noel Nephi, was brutally gunned down, execution style similar to Simon.

The murders of Radica and Simon sent shockwaves throughout Guyana’s LGBTQ+ community, a reminder of the daily struggles for the safety and stability of trans people while illuminating the antiquated post-colonial laws that continue to teach their fellow citizens that harm against LGBTQ+ Guyanese people is acceptable and not worth investigating. “Their deaths did not occur in isolation. It is a result of a lack of human rights laws and decades of systemic injustices targeting marginalized LGBTQ+ people in the country. Guyana is the only country in South America where same-sex intimacy is illegal. The law criminalizes “gross indecency” and “buggery” between consenting adults, with penalties of up to life imprisonment. There are no legal protections against discrimination based on sexual orientation or gender identity,” said Mohamed Q. Amin. All of the murdered trans women were forced into survival sex work due to a lack of employment opportunities, job discrimination, housing inequities, and inaccessible health and gender-affirming care.

Photo by Richard Louissaint

The West Indian Labor Day Parade is the largest convening of Caribbean people in NYC. It’s a cultural space for Caribbean people, by Caribbean people, and that includes Caribbean LGBTQ+ joy and resilience. Since 2015, the Caribbean Equality Project has participated in the parade to advocate for Caribbean LGBTQ+ voices in NYC, as well as fellow LGBTQ people surviving in the region.

This year, the Queer Caribbean Liberation Collective marched to demand a “One Guyana” free of hate and violence. We call on the Government of Guyana, Law Enforcement, and the newly formed Constitutional Reform Commission to act immediately by:

1. Thoroughly investigate the murder of Randy “Radica” Stanislaus
2. Prosecuting Simon’s murderers to the full extent of the law
3. Including explicit language that protects LGBTQ+ survivors of domestic, gender, and intimate partner violence in Guyana’s Family Violence Bill No. 11 of 2024
4. Repealing Sections 351, 352, and 353 of Guyana’s colonial-era Criminal Law Act of 1893
5. Enforcing the right to work as guaranteed under Article 149A of the Constitution
6. Abiding by the Equality of Persons mandate under Article 149D (1), (2), & (3) of the Constitution
7. Amendment of Guyana’s Police Act to strengthen police accountability for law enforcement willful negligence and thoroughly investigate allegations of police misconduct, including bias-based policing
8. Actualizing the Right to Housing under Article 26 of the Constitution
9. Creating greater access to education without discrimination and implementing disciplinary protocols for educators and administrators
10. Amending Article 149 (2) of the Constitution to include protections against discrimination based on Sexual Orientation and Gender Identity

Caribbean Equality Project (CEP) is a grassroots community-based immigrant rights organization that empowers, advocates for, and represents Afro and Indo-Caribbean LGBTQ+ people in New York City. The organization was launched by Founder and Executive Director Mohamed Q. Amin in 2015 in response to anti-LGBTQ hate violence in Richmond Hill, Queens. Since then, the CEP has been hosting bi-monthly healing community spaces through its Unchained support groups in Queens and Brooklyn, facilitates immigration legal services for LGBTQ+ asylum seekers, curates oral history and storytelling interdisciplinary art exhibitions, combats food insecurity, organizes culture-shifting programming and builds political power through civic engagement, Census outreach, redistricting, voter registration, and legislative advocacy to advance LGBTQ+ and voting rights in New York State.

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