Dwayne Jones was relentlessly teased in high school for being effeminate until he dropped out.
His father not only kicked him out of the house at the age of 14 but also helped jeering neighbors push the youngster from the rough Jamaican slum where he grew up.
By age 16, the teenager was dead – beaten, stabbed, shot and run over by a car when he showed up at a street party dressed as a woman. His mistake: confiding to a friend that he was attending a “straight” party as a girl for the first time in his life.
Dwayne’s horrific July 22 murder has made headlines and stirred calls in some quarters for doing more to protect Jamaica’s gay community, especially those who live on the streets and resort to sex work.
Advocates say much of the homophobia is fueled by a nearly 150-year-old anti-sodomy law that bans anal sex as well as by dancehall reggae performers who flaunt anti-gay themes.
The island’s main gay rights group estimated that two homosexual men were killed for their sexual orientation last year, and 36 were the victims of mob violence.
http://www.theglobeandmail.com/news...long-standing-discrimination/article13703412/