Homophobic and transphobic violence against youth: The Jamaican context

Abstract

Jamaican LGBTI youth face tragic disparities, the level of which warrants immediate legislative attention. Jamaica has been characterized as one of the most homophobic and transphobic societies globally. Therefore, LGBTI youth routinely experience widespread discrimination and hostility at from the very social institutions (i.e. family, school, community and government) from which they would expect nurturance, care and protection. Also troubling is the fact that despite the country being a signatory to numerous United Nations human rights agreements, there are no legal protections against the discrimination they face. Considering the wealth of empirical evidence on the dire effects of homophobia and transphobia on youth’s well-being, a serious and urgent public health undertaking is necessary to address the homophobia and transphobia and their assumed deleterious outcomes for youth in that context. Comprehensive society-wide measures are obligatory to prevent and reduce the risk of victimization of all youth, but particularly LGBTI youth.

Keywords

• Jamaica
• LGBTI
• violence
• homophobia
• transphobia