Trinidadian activist and writer <PERSON>, who did the ‘work of social history,’ has died · Global Voices
Activist and writer <PERSON> taking part in the open mic event at the Calabash Literary Festival, 2007. Photo by <PERSON> on Flickr, CC BY-NC-ND 2.0.
Trinidadian writer and staunch advocate for LGBTQ+ rights, <PERSON>, passed away on March 4 after a long battle with colon cancer. He was 58 years old.
<PERSON> was one of the founders of the Coalition Advocating for the Inclusion of Sexual Orientation (CAISO), a civil society organisation that champions human rights issues for Trinidad and Tobago’s LGBTI (Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Transgender and Intersex) communities and has built partnerships with feminist and other activist organisations.
CAISO aptly dubbed him its “Director of Imagination,” and in its statement on his death praised the way in which he “embodied fighting for justice using creative imagination and instilled in us the importance of collective voice and effort.”
<PERSON> said that his work at CAISO was about three things that excited him—analysis, alliances, and advocacy:
Leadership in CAISO provides opportunities to learn so much about policy and government, like how easily anyone can engage officials in a small place. I’ve grown to understand and own concerns of movements CAISO’s built alliances with—children’s advocates, violence survivors, people with disabilities, the highway rerouters—and admire the generosity and passion of other leaders. CAISO’s given me space to practise imagination. Imagination is as critical to social justice as power. Unless we imagine more just futures and how we get there, change won’t come.
<PERSON> deeply understood the concept that justice for one must translate into justice for all; his death prompted an outpouring from like-minded organisations such as Cause An Effect, which aims to improve the lives of people with disabilities in Trinidad and Tobago:
Thank you <PERSON>, for your tireless work in the advocacy space. […] Thank you for your service and all that you did, with the time that you had.
His friend and colleague, Dr. <PERSON>, who lectures at The University of the West Indies’ Institute for Gender and Development Studies, noted the way in which <PERSON> would automatically make connections between seemingly disparate groups:
More than ten years ago, <PERSON> gave a speech I’ll never forget. 357
It was on reproductive rights, but he somehow wove in Spiritual Baptists, LBGTI folk and others you wouldn’t think share the same cause. If all who understood discrimination or life at the margins of state law and social acceptance were able to connect to each other’s desires for inclusion, then we could strengthen each other’s struggle to equally belong as many different bodies.
In their online tributes, colleagues and friends remembered his courageousness and mentorship of young people, the significance of his work, and his love of life even when “actively dying.”
Doing the “work of memory”
<PERSON>, who wrote a weekly column for the Trinidad and Tobago Newsday, used the platform to publicly share his battle with cancer, announcing in a May 2020 article that his condition was terminal. His refreshing candour in that piece caused it to be liberally shared across social media platforms at the time:
My genes had bred a cancer that’s a better activist than me, which had promptly spread. I was Stage IV. […] And I am going to cuss the next person who tells me that, despite the bad news, they are praying for my total recovery.
There comes this moment when you realise—or decide—that what you are doing is dying. And that you need to quickly learn how to.
Part of that process was what <PERSON> called “the work of memory”:
[…] recording what I remember; and helping others to remember the paths I have trodden by leaving better markers of them—memoir-writing and archiving. This is not work only for the well-known. Indeed, in some ways it is work that is far more important for those not in the public record to undertake. […] It is the work of social history.
<PERSON>, the writer
As a writer, <PERSON> contributed to several publications, including the book “Beyond Homophobia,” which aimed to disrupt the perception of the region as deeply homophobic by focusing on “the experiences and agency” of Caribbean LGBTQ people. 357