News
Jamaican LGBT advocates condemn murder of cross-dressing teenager
17-year-old reportedly stabbed to death during party near Montego Bay
A street in Montego Bay, Jamaica. (Photo by D. Ramey Logan via Wikimedia Commons)
Jamaican LGBT rights advocates have expressed outrage over the reported murder of a cross-dressing teenager near the resort city of Montego Bay.
The radio station Irie FM reported the 17-year-old was dancing with a man at a party on July 21 while dressed as a woman when someone realized the teen was cross-dressing. A second man reportedly discovered the teenager was actually male.
Irie FM said a group of party-goers stabbed the 17-year-old to death either late on July 21 or early Monday morning before dumping the teen’s body in bushes on the side of a road.
The Jamaica-Gleaner reported earlier today that police officers found the teen, whom they identified as Dwayne Jones, with what it described as “multiple stab wounds and a gunshot wound.”
“We send our sincere condolences to the family and friends of the teenager who was slain,” the Jamaica Forum for Lesbians All-Sexuals and Gays (J-FLAG,) a Jamaican LGBT rights group, said in a statement it issued on Tuesday. “We call for a thorough investigation into the murder of the teenager in Montego Bay and hope that the family and loved ones of the slained teen will find the justice they deserve.”
Jones’ murder comes against the backdrop of pervasive anti-LGBT violence in the Caribbean nation.
A J-FLAG report said the organization knows of at least 30 gay men who have been murdered in Jamaica between 1997 and 2004.
A man stabbed J-FLAG co-founder Brian Williamson to death inside his home in Kingston, the country’s capital in 2004. Former J-FLAG executive director Gareth Henry sought asylum in Canada in 2008 after he received death threats.
Authorities found honorary British consul John Terry strangled to death inside his home near Montego Bay in 2009. They found a note left next to his body that referred to him as “batty boy,” a derogatory term used against gay men in Jamaica.
Maurice Tomlinson, a Jamaican lawyer with the group AIDS-Free World who fled his homeland in 2012 after he received death threats after local media reported he had married a Canadian man, told the Washington Blade from his home in upstate New York that there have been nine reported anti-gay murders on the island so far this year. He added there has been a 400 percent increase in the number of reported attacks against LGBT Jamaicans since 2009.
Tomlinson said this spike in the number of reported incidents could be the result of the work advocates have done to document human rights abuses against LGBT Jamaicans.
The Jamaica Supreme Court last month heard a lawsuit that challenges the island’s anti-sodomy law under which those who are convicted face up to 10 years in prison with hard labor.
“The rhetoric is getting much more toxic,” Tomlinson said, noting brutal attacks against gay Jamaicans has become more common. He said they are no longer confined to just Kingston and a handful of other areas. “We’re not sure if the increase in attacks is a function of that or the reporting.”
The State Department, Amnesty International and other groups have criticized the Jamaican government for not doing enough to curb anti-LGBT violence in the country.
AIDS-Free world has challenged Jamaica’s anti-sodomy law before the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights in D.C. It has also asked the group that is housed within the Organization for American States to formally respond to the ongoing persecution that homeless men who have sex with men and other vulnerable groups of gay Jamaicans face.
Tomlinson’s group also plans to ask the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights to formally condemn discrimination and violence against LGBT Jamaicans.
The Organization of American States, of which Jamaica is a member, last month adopted an anti-discrimination resolution that includes sexual orientation and gender identity and expression during its annual meeting that took place in Guatemala. Jamaica declined to accept the protocol’s LGBT-specific recommendations.
Tomlinson, who appeared on the National Public Radio program “Tell Me More” with Michel Martin on Monday to discuss the documentary “The Abominable Crime” that examines anti-LGBT violence in Jamaica, told the Blade the government has been “absolutely silent” on the issue.
Former J-FLAG staffer Nico Tyndale’s cousin was murdered in Jamaica earlier this year because his assailants thought he was gay.
Tyndale told the Blade earlier on Tuesday that many people continue argue the country is not homophobic – and gay Jamaicans are actually “the ones killing ourselves.”
“We can’t even be who we are,” Tyndale said. “Being who we are only leads to a mob and a slaughter.”
District of Columbia
Laverne Cox, Reneé Rapp, Deacon Maccubbin named WorldPride grand marshals
Three LGBTQ icons to lead parade
WorldPride organizers announced Thursday that actress and trans activist Laverne Cox, powerhouse performer Reneé Rapp, and LGBTQ trailblazer Deacon Maccubbin will serve as grand marshals for this year’s WorldPride parade.
The Capital Pride Alliance, which is organizing WorldPride 2025 in Washington, D.C., revealed the honorees in a press release, noting that each has made a unique contribution to the fabric of the LGBTQ community.
Cox made history in 2014 as the first openly transgender person nominated for a Primetime Emmy Award in an acting category for her role in Netflix’s “Orange Is the New Black.” She went on to win a Daytime Emmy in 2015 for her documentary “Laverne Cox Presents: The T Word,” which followed seven young trans people as they navigated coming out.
Rapp, a singer and actress who identifies as a lesbian, rose to prominence as Regina George in the Broadway musical “Mean Girls.” She reprised the role in the 2024 film adaptation and also stars in Max’s “The Sex Lives of College Girls,” portraying a character coming to terms with her sexuality. Rapp has released an EP, “Everything to Everyone,” and an album, “Snow Angel.” She announced her sophomore album, “Bite Me,” on May 21 and is slated to perform at the WorldPride Music Festival at the RFK Festival Grounds.
Deacon Maccubbin, widely regarded as a cornerstone of Washington’s LGBTQ+ history, helped organize D.C.’s first Gay Pride Party in 1975. The event took place outside Lambda Rising, one of the first LGBTQ bookstores in the nation, which Maccubbin founded. For his decades of advocacy and activism, he is often referred to as “the patriarch of D.C. Pride.”
“I am so honored to serve as one of the grand marshals for WorldPride this year. This has been one of the most difficult times in recent history for queer and trans people globally,” Cox said. “But in the face of all the rhetorical, legislative and physical attacks, we continue to have the courage to embrace who we truly are, to celebrate our beauty, resilience and bravery as a community. We refuse to allow fear to keep us from ourselves and each other. We remain out loud and proud.”
“Pride is everything. It is protection, it is visibility, it is intersectional. But most importantly, it is a celebration of existence and protest,” Rapp said.
The three will march down 14th Street for the WorldPride Parade in Washington on June 7.
Congress
House passes reconciliation with gender-affirming care funding ban
‘Big Beautiful Bill’ now heads to the Senate
The Republican-led U.S. House of Representatives on Thursday voted 215-214 for passage of the “One Big Beautiful Bill Act” reconciliation package, which includes provisions that would prohibit the use of federal funds to support gender-affirming care.
But for an 11th hour revision of the bill late Wednesday night by conservative lawmakers, Medicaid and CHIP would have been restricted only from covering treatments and interventions administered to patients younger than 18.
The legislation would also drop requirements that some health insurers must cover gender-affirming care as an “essential health benefit” and force states that currently mandate such coverage to find it independently. Plans could still offer coverage for transgender care but without the EHB classification patients will likely pay higher out of pocket costs.
To offset the cost of extending tax cuts from 2017 that disproportionately benefited the wealthiest Americans, the reconciliation bill contains significant cuts to spending for federal programs like Medicaid and the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program.
The Human Rights Campaign criticized House Republicans in a press release and statement by the group’s president, Kelley Robinson:
“People in this country want policies and solutions that make life better and expand access to the American Dream. Instead, anti-equality lawmakers voted to give handouts to billionaires built on the backs of hardworking people — with devastating consequences for the LGBTQ+ community.
“If the cuts to programs like Medicaid and SNAP or resources like Planned Parenthood clinics weren’t devastating enough, House Republicans added a last minute provision that expands its attacks on access to best practice health care to transgender adults.
“This cruel addition shows their priorities have never been about lowering costs or expanding health care access–but in targeting people simply for who they are. These lawmakers have abandoned their constituents, and as they head back to their districts, know this: they will hear from us.”
Senate Republicans are expected to pass the bill with the budget reconciliation process, which would allow them to bypass the filibuster and clear the spending package with a simple majority vote.
Changes are expected as the bill will be reviewed and amended by committees, particularly the Finance Committee, and then brought to the floor for debate — though modifications are expected to focus on Medicaid reductions and debate over state and local tax deductions.
2025 D.C. Trans Pride was held at Martin Luther King, Jr. Memorial Library on Saturday, May 17. The day was filled with panel discussions, art, social events, speakers, a resource fair and the Engendered Spirit Awards. Awardees included Lyra McMillan, Pip Baitinger, Steph Niaupari and Hayden Gise. The keynote address was delivered by athlete and advocate Schuyler Bailar.
(Washington Blade photos by Michael Key)
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