Though opposition remains, Trinidad and Tobago takes a historic legal step towards LGBT equality
On one side of courtroom POS 09 sat a small group of pastors dressed in suits and expressions that were just as stiff. On the other were supporters of sexual and gender minorities’ rights, at least one of them sporting a T-shirt that declared details of the “homosexual agenda” in Trinidad and Tobago: “1. Buy Crix [a popular local cracker] 2. Spend time with family 3. Fight for equality”.
On April 12, 2018, Justice Devindra Rampersad brought the twin island republic’s lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender (LGBT) community that much closer to achieving item number three when he delivered his decision in the case of Jason Jones vs. the Attorney General of Trinidad and Tobago, ruling that Sections 13 and 16 of the country’s Sexual Offences Act Chapter 11:28, which criminalise anal sex between consenting adults, are “unconstitutional”.