In that space, all the cultural nuances regarding LGBT people
and the kind of homophobia, transphobia
came to play in that moment, in that interaction
with that one representative.
I'm a Black, immigrant, trans woman
living in Toronto.
Within the fifth year
of migrating here, I had a need to
return to Jamaica to connect with my family.
So I went to my Jamaican consulate
and the experience was unforgettable.
I was called to a window to speak with a female
and she looked up at me, and then looked down at
the photographs I submitted for processing my passport.
And that's when all hell broke loose.
Now she was telling me that I was a female
and the document that I handed her was not for me.
Now, take into mind that I still have not
legally changed my name.
I still represented male, because that's what
my documentation said.
However, my presentation was saying something else,
it was saying female.
She started by placing a Bible in her window
to let me know that homophobia, transphobia is still here.
She placed this Bible in the window
and then a picture with Jesus on the cross
and then she started singing Christian songs
and I became a spectacle.
because the other employees now were
coming outside for no reason,
to see who it was in the window.
And they were pretending to make photocopies
that they weren't making,
and it became something of
a reminder how
LGBT people and or visible minorities
like myself are treated in Jamaica.
Because I didn't want to rock the boat, so to speak,
I did everything that I could
to comply with them even though I knew that I was being wronged.
I eventually got my passport
and I got it with a kind of realization that
I'm holding this Jamaican passport
and the very thing that I left Jamaica for,
I could possibly become vulnerable to
if I went back to Jamaica.
If having that experience here in Canada
was so impactful, traumatic to me,
do I really now want to immerse myself into Jamaican life again?
And as a result, I've not gone back to Jamaica since.
