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Last Updated: Feb 13, 2017 - 1:45:37 AM |
 Dear Editor,
Since the No Vote coalition campaigned against the Yes Vote coalition, ostensibly because the inclusion of the term sex in Article 26 (3) would allow for social protections against discrimination and remedies to discrimination for an oppressed and denigrated category of people--LGBT; minister Fritzgerald has sought to gain mileage, in the immediate aftermath of the referendum from the phobic depression in which the straight masses have sunk with the incendiary remark that the failure to amend Article 26 (4)(c) to include sex in some way opens the door to same sex marriage. This is incomprehensible.
Firstly, the referendum, that is Bill four sought to amend Article 26 (3) not (4)(c). Article 26(3) states that “In this Article, the expression “discriminatory” means affording different treatment to different persons attributable wholly or mainly to their respective descriptions by race, place of origins, political opinions, color or creed….” Article 26 (4) (c) refers to exceptions. Article 26 (4) states that “Paragraph (1) of this Article shall not apply to any law so far as the law makes provisions--”. Article 26 (4) (c) states “with respect to adoption, marriage, divorce, burial, devolution of property on death or other matters of personal law.”
There has been a rise of gender non-conformity and transsexual transgenderism in the social consciousness of the Bahamian people. Just prior to the referendum the Bahamas Transgender, Intersexed United (BTIU) made a plea for fundamental rights for all genders. MP Leslie Miller reaction was that transgender folks should be exiled to a cay. In Europe and North America we’ve seen the maturation of the social acceptance of the LGBT community by the wider community to the extent that gay marriage is legal in many states. This has intensified homo/trans phobia and reaction in the straight community in the Bahamas. Our reactionary clergy made the referendum the center of their political agenda to oppress women and the LGBT community. The clergy and other homo/trans-phobes were on a political mission to prevent gays from having the right to marry. This has taken the form of an obsession with the language of the proposed amendment to Article 26(3). They were seeking language that would unequivocally exclude the LGBT community. Under pressure from the clergy the government substituted the term sex (defined sex as male and female) for the term gender. Gender was unacceptable to the clergy because the LGBT community is gendered, so the only other alternative was sex (with or without the caveat at birth).
The problem is neither sex nor gender can guarantee the exclusion of the LGBT community because the terms sex and gender have historically been intricately intertwined in law worldwide. However, the convention of entrenchment today would be to include sexual orientation to guarantee protections on that basis. The Christie administration and the Yes Vote coalition did their best to assure the public that there was no conspiracy to legitimize gay marriage by reiterating the exceptions in Article 26 (4)(c). But, the masses were whipped into a phobic frenzy about the consequences of gender equality—it would upset the natural order of things—gender conformity, heterosexual privilege and male supremacy, legitimizing gender nonconformity (confusion), gender equality and gay marriage. Hence, the call to stand up and protect putative Bahamian values against secular values. What can the misogynous, homo/trans phobic masses do under these social pressures but have faith in their pastors or opt out the process.
It is unfortunate that minister Fritzgerald is playing the spin game and using the LGBT community as a pawn, further confusing the public. The LGBT community would not be expected to gain nor lose from the inclusion of sex in Article 26 (3). But, we lost an opportunity to provide remedies against discrimination on the basis of sex for the foreseeable future due to the resounding no vote.
Kreimild Saunders, PhD
© Copyright 2016 by thebahamasweekly.com
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