Dwayne Jones, 16, was beaten to death in Jamaica when the transgender teen showed up to a party dressed as a woman
· International advocacy groups have called the island nation the most hostile country in the Western Hemisphere for the LGBT community
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.
'When I saw Dwayne's body, I started shaking and crying,' said Khloe, one of three transgendered friends who shared a derelict house with the teenager in the hills above the north coast city of Montego Bay.
Like most transgenders and gays in Jamaica, Khloe wouldn't give a full name out of fear.
'It was horrible. It was so, so painful to see him like that.'
International advocacy groups often portray this Caribbean island as the most hostile country in the Western Hemisphere for gays and transgendered people.
After two prominent gay rights activists were murdered, a researcher with the U.S.-based Human Rights Watch in 2006 called the environment in Jamaica for such groups 'the worst any of us has ever seen.' Local activists have since disputed that label, but still say homophobia is pervasive.
Dwayne's horrific July 22 murder has made headlines in newspapers on the island 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.
For years, Jamaica's gay community has lived so far underground that their parties and church services were held in secret locations.
Most gays have stuck to a 'don't ask, don't tell' policy of keeping their sexual orientation hidden to avoid scrutiny or protect loved ones.
'Judging by comments made on social media, most Jamaicans think Dwayne Jones brought his death on himself for wearing a dress and dancing in a society that has made it abundantly clear that homosexuals are neither to be seen nor heard,' said Annie Paul, a blogger and publications officer at Jamaica's campus of the University of the West Indies.
Some say the hostility partly stems from the legacy of slavery when black men were sometimes sodomized as punishment or humiliation.
Some historians believe that practice carried over into a general dread of homosexuality.
But in recent years, emboldened young people such as Dwayne have helped bring the island's gay and transgender community out of the shadows.
A small group of gay runaways now rowdily congregates on the streets of Kingston's financial district.
Prime Minister Portia Simpson Miller's government has also vowed to put the anti-sodomy law to a 'conscience vote' in Parliament, and she said during her 2011 campaign that only merit would decide who got a Cabinet position in her government.
By contrast, former Prime Minister Bruce Golding said in 2008 that he would never allow homosexuals in his Cabinet.
SCRIPTURES:
JOHN 8:1Jesus went unto the mount of Olives. 2And early in the morning he came again into the temple, and all the people came unto him; and he sat down, and taught them. 3And the scribes and Pharisees brought unto him a woman taken in adultery; and when they had set her in the midst, 4They say unto him, Master, this woman was taken in adultery, in the very act. 5Now Moses in the law commanded us, that such should be stoned: but what sayest thou? 6This they said, tempting him, that they might have to accuse him. But Jesus stooped down, and with his finger wrote on the ground, as though he heard them not. 7So when they continued asking him, he lifted up himself, and said unto them, He that is without sin among you, let him first cast a stone at her. 8And again he stooped down, and wrote on the ground. 9And they which heard it, being convicted by their own conscience, went out one by one, beginning at the eldest, even unto the last: and Jesus was left alone, and the woman standing in the midst. 10When Jesus had lifted up himself, and saw none but the woman, he said unto her, Woman, where are those thine accusers? hath no man condemned thee? 11She said, No man, Lord. And Jesus said unto her, Neither do I condemn thee: go, and sin no more.
DEUTERONOMY 22:5The woman shall not wear that which pertaineth unto a man, neither shall a man put on a woman's garment: for all that do so are abomination unto the LORD thy God.
PROVERBS 22:6Train up a child in the way he should go: and when he is old, he will not depart from it.
2 PETER 2:; 6And turning the cities of Sodom and Gomorrha into ashes condemned them with an overthrow, making them an ensample unto those that after should live ungodly;
7And delivered just Lot, vexed with the filthy conversation of the wicked: 8(For that righteous man dwelling among them, in seeing and hearing, vexed his righteous soul from day to day with their unlawful deeds;) 9The Lord knoweth how to deliver the godly out of temptations, and to reserve the unjust unto the day of judgment to be punished:
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