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SIXTEEN-YEAR-OLD Dwayne Jones was beaten, stabbed, shot and run over by a car for being transgender.
The incident happened when he showed up at a street party dressed as a woman.
Dwayne’s 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.
“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.
Dwayne Jones’ transgendered friend and roommate, Keke, poses for a photo in kitchen of the home they shared on the northern outskirts of Montego Bay. (AP Photo/David McFadden)
International advocacy groups often portray the 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”.
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.
Prime Minister Portia Simpson Miller’s government has 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.
Dane Lewis, executive director of the Jamaica Forum for Lesbians, All-Sexuals & Gays, said there were increasing “pockets of tolerance” on the island.
Khloe shows scars from an attack on the night Dwayne was killed. (AP Photo/David McFadden)
“We can say that we are becoming more tolerant. And thankfully that’s because of people like Dwayne who have helped push the envelope,” said Lewis, one of the few Jamaican gays who will publicly disclose his full name.
Yet rights groups still complain of the slow pace of the investigation into Jones’ murder, despite the justice minister calling for a full probe.
Police spokesman Steve Brown said detectives working the case are struggling to overcome a chronic problem: a strong anti-informant culture that makes eyewitnesses to murders and other crimes too afraid or simply unwilling to come forward.
Even though some 300 people were at the dance party in the small riverside community of Irwin, police have yet to make a single arrest in Dwayne’s murder. Police say witnesses have said they couldn’t see the attackers’ faces.
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No it dosent I left school when I was 5 1/2 old I worked in a coal mine then on a milk float when I was 8yrs old I started work in Dublin airport sweeping the floors, they obviously liked what they saw cause by the age of 11 I was flying trans Atlantic flights, I didn’t want to get stuck in a rut so I left to become a kitchen porter in great ormond street hospital, I was quickly moved up through the ranks to become "head of difficult and really complicated brain surgery" i was the inspiration for the hit tv show doogie howser (I directed three episodes) in my spare time while not doing difficult and really complicated brain surgery I invented the Internet. At the age of 15 I left the hospital and started up a small company called "apple" by the age of 16 I swam around the world twice, then I became a race car driver, an astronaut, a professional footballer and i built a hadron collider, I helped steven Hawkins out with a couple of his Theories, I wrestled a lion , beat a gorilla in an arm wrestling match, out swam a shark and beat a cheetah in a race. I’ve reinvented how we think about quantum physics and the space time continuum, to name but a few things I’ve done without my leaving cert
It used to matter. For most it won’t, because there is no future.
What a ridiculous question. Of course it bloody does – it determines your future.
Of course there’s always an exception to every rule but it’s probably the most important exam in your life.
What a ridiculous comment, that’s just what you have been led to believe.
I know some guy who left school at 16, did an apprenticeship then went into engineering and had a masters at 25 and he is very well off. Said he hated school.
It can be beneficial to do well in your leaving but I will stand by my words when I say …….
"it does NOT always determine your future!"
I failed mine twice! I went on to get a Bachelors Degree in Engineering followed by a successful career.
The leaving cert is important. It’s not critical, it’s just important.
If it’s so unimportant, and the results don’t matter, and you can do whatever you want without it…
…why the hell did we make them do it in the first place?
Of course it matters. Until a college admissions office says that they’re abandoning the points system to determine if you can enter college, it’s always going to matter, unless your chosen profession doesn’t require a college degree (and we don’t have as many of those jobs as other countries do).
The fact that where you are at 40 is something that nobody in the world can predict at 18 is the thing to keep in mind here, not some patronising platitude that something you’ve spent two years of your life or more working towards suddenly doesn’t matter on the day you get your results from those years of work…
I left school at 13 I am 40 now and heading into my final year of a honours degree in psychology with aspirations to continue on to master an phd level. I wouldn’t say missing the leaving or junior cert held me back if any thing getting out into life has giving more life experience for the field I aiming for.
These articles are just for people who didn’t do so well so they don’t feel so bad today. I needed my leaving, i did ok, not brilliant, not terrible, I’m now doing a PhD in engineering. I never thought i’d get to that stage but life throws you up some weird opportunities. I also failed first year in college. Some people don’t need a leaving but to be fair they are the minority. i think the way the construction industry is now, not going to college is a poor choice if you have the ability and drive to succeed in life. I might finish my PhD and travel the world or work as a shop assistant, but at least i have a fall back. If i dropped out or did poorly in the leaving i wouldn’t have choices like that to make. I would have two choices, work in a minimum wage job or the dole. Maybe a low paying job will spur people on to great things in the future but the vast majority will be stuck in those jobs for a looong time.
Sorry to disagree Aidan, I’ve a friend who didn’t go to college. Sat A levels in England and moved over here to work. Started as floor staff in a shop within 4 years he had been elevated to district manager through his own drive and initiative. I’ve friends who dropped out and are doing quite well as mountain guides for climbing companies in Scotland following their passion. And I’ve friends who finished degrees with 2.1 or 1.1 results and have been working in Dominos and been on the dole for the last few years. For all of these people the LC was worthless.
For those who do badly and join the dole que and spend their lives not trying the leaving cert was a bit of a pointless venture and they probably did badly. For those who will go on to perhaps go to college, or do an apprenticeship or try to work their way up a few ladders from the ground and who’ll make some effort and do a little work it may count, but those people will always succeed anyway to some degree or another. Those people are admirable. They’re the people who will have done at least reasonably today.
After just finishing a BSc I was just sitting around a few nights ago with friends from my year (school) thinking about where life was taking us all. It’s weird. People you always had pegged as triers, go getters, likely to do well. With very little plan to do anything. So few of them are following the path of their degrees. People who got first class honors, struggling to find work. Everyone who went through college emmigrating for a half decent job. It’s the ones who flunked out at some stage that are now not forced to go abroad. But they’re also the ones who don’t have the initiative and guts to pack up and go in search of their fortune.
No the leaving cert isn’t that important, after college the interest in what you got in it is pretty minimal. Employers seem more interested in your references, work experience, the impression they get of you in an interview and how you do in tests they give you. Jobs tend to be too specific to care about how you did in such a broad set of exams. And if you get through college on your first attempt (which is actually pretty important), you’ve got a lot of time to play around with to find out what it is you need to do to make yourself employable to the right people, or to get what you need to start your own business. You’ll be 17/18 after the LC. That’s very young indeed.
It counts now. How much it defines the direction of your life in the future is up to you. I do not know one person who knew in any great detail at the age of 17 what they would be doing at the age of 30. It’s a tool to help you determine how to get to where you want to go if you treat it with the right attitude.
Failure at LC level will not define who you are unless you allow it to. There are ways around a lot of obstacles in life and Leaving Cert results are not that different in the grand scheme of things. You control a lot of your destiny as far as the leaving cert is concerned (although you need to know this before today), not vice versa.
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