Barbados’ LBGT+ community is here

Sunday, July 22, 2018, marked the first major, public LGBTQ Pride march in Barbados. This has been a long time coming. There have been Pride events in the past: June and July usually see a few parties, and 2017 saw both a small-scale demonstration for inclusivity outside Parliament and an equally small counter-protest to a religious rally with underlying homo-antagonistic messages.

This year, however, the Barbados Pride Committee, which comprises representatives of several local LGBTQ organisations and groups, divvied up the responsibility for a series of pride events during June and July. Ro-Ann Mohammed, co-director of Barbados Gays & Lesbians Against Discrimination (B-GLAD), was tasked with organising the march and managed to rally a modest yet powerfully visible group comprising an estimated 120–150 members of the Barbadian LGBTQ community and allies. This is no small feat.

In the weeks leading up to the march, Mohammed received an impressive amount of bigoted social media vitriol, along with credible threats to her safety and that of march participants, posted both on her personal Facebook page and the B-GLAD page. It was as if she had become the de facto lightning rod for hatred against the community. She also received criticism from members of the LGBTQ community itself, some of whom did not believe that Barbadian society was ready for such a public display. Additionally, religious leaders publicly condemned the march, using typical anti-LGBTQ buzzwords like “gay agenda,” and quoting scripture. Barbados still maintains anti-sodomy laws, and the public/media conversation around the rights of LGBTQ people is still dominated by conservative Christian sentiment. It is against this backdrop of probable threat, potential lack of support, and general societal antagonism that the march took place. Read more via Global Voices