Dozens of members of the lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender (LGBT) community and their supporters yesterday took to the streets of Georgetown for the 2022 pride parade.
The parade, comprising over thirty persons, started in the cool of the afternoon from Parade Ground, on Middle Street, and moved through streets of Georgetown until it reached the Square of the Revolution.
Many persons in attendance were seen dancing and flouncing to the music which was being played in the midst of the parade.
Organised by the Society Against Sexual Orientation Discrimination (SASOD), the parade had been held virtually in the previous two years due to the COVID-19 pandemic.
The “bounce back celebration” came in wake of a recent ruling by the Eastern Caribbean Supreme Court (ECSC), which saw the buggery laws of Antigua and Barbuda being nullified, prompting calls for similar laws here to be repealed.
SASOD, which has been campaigning against the laws for close to two decades, welcomed the conclusion of the Antigua and Barbuda case, where sections 12 and 15 of the Sexual Offences Act that prohibited several acts of same-sex intimacy were deemed by the Court to be unconstitutional and discriminatory.
“SASOD Guyana emphatically celebrates with the people of Antigua and Barbuda, civil society and other partners who contributed to the success of the legal challenge,” the organisation said.
It highlighted that the Court’s decision in Antigua and Barbuda follows rulings in Belize (2016) and in Trinidad and Tobago (2018) where similar legal provisions were struck down. There are currently ongoing constitutional challenges of the same nature in St Lucia, St Kitts and Nevis and Barbados, where final rulings are expected to be handed down by the end of the year.
SASOD has lamented that Guyana is one of the few Caribbean nations with archaic laws still on its books.
