Guyana Pride Festival launched
-British envoy defends LGBT rights
The Guyana LGBTIQ Coalition, in collaboration with the British High Commissioner to Guyana, Jane Miller, has launched Guyana Pride Festival 2022. The launch took place on May 11 ahead of the International Day against Homophobia, Transphobia and Biphobia (IDAHOTB), a SASOD release noted on Thursday.
The Pride Festival will be celebrated this year under the IDAHOTB theme, “Our Bodies, Our Lives, Our Rights.”
In her brief remarks at the launch, Miller declared that “the UK is very proud to be a champion for LGBT [lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender] rights across the whole world. LGBT rights are fundamental human rights and we are committed to the principle that everyone, everywhere, should be able to love the person they love and express themselves without fear of violence.”
Joel Simpson, Managing Director of SASOD Guyana, said that the focus of this year’s Pride Festival would centre on sexual rights, noting, “we want to draw attention to laws which criminalise same-sex intimacy; we know that these laws are colonial in nature and they are relics we inherited from colonial rule.” He shared that as part of the Festival’s advocacy plans, there would be various opportunities during the course of the activities for there to be discussions around the impacts of the criminalisation of sexual rights and how they particularly impact the LGBTIQ people in Guyana.
When asked her opinion about the laws criminalising same-sex intimacy, Miller responded, according to the SASOD release, “Guyana has inherited laws that were brought in many, many years ago, British laws, the UK has now repealed that. We now have very progressive laws in the UK that protect the rights of the LGBT community and there are many countries like Guyana where that has never changed. The UK has changed and I am very proud of the fact that the UK has changed, which is why I am very proud to be championing the rights of the LGBT community. My view is that they [the laws] were wrong then and they are wrong now and I will do all I can to be championing changes that protect the rights of the