Displacements due to possession of women's clothes .............

You may have noticed my posts have been a bit infrequent as I have been out and about on the road recently and with the news as posted on sister blog GLBTQJA on Wordpress with the interfaith group in St Catherine my home parish now working with some of the men there they have been asking for some assistance to which I responded however the sticky issue of engaging the more effeminate displaced men is still a sore point for the multi-faith group and myself. 

also see the previous posts for some background:

Interfaith group pledges continued support for St Catherine homeless MSM

Marauding homosexuals and J-FLAG (Observer Editorial) ……………………

Homeless impatient with agencies over slow progress of promised shelter from December 2012

On homelessness, evictions, hypocrisy & now JFLAG's own displacement

A Neighbour's take on the Homeless MSM New Kgn matter

Good to see however that they are interested in helping out and allocating the remaining resources from a previous intervention they were apart of with other inner city youth which includes part time jobs for a day etc, now comes more bad news of the numbers being increased as two young men who attended a party in Western Jamaica recently found themselves in trouble when they returned home, well at least one overnighting with the other as his good friend. 

Both are young cross dressers on the scene and took with them their attire to change at the event at which they enjoyed themselves according to them however upon reaching home in St. Catherine what seems a friendly greeting as a joke by a nosy female cousin of one of the men ended up with a crowd gathering at the gate of the home with some laughing, jeering and expressing their supposed previous knowledge of the men being gay but the discovery of the female clothes and shoes being the confirmation they had been waiting for. This is not the first time we have seen such a case in fact many of the men from the previous homeless shelter under the Safe House Pilot project that was closed in 2009 and who found themselves displaced and subsequently homeless became so due to a similar discovery as well. Many drag queens or cross dressers carry themselves "normally" en route to the respective LGBT events and then change over upon arriving only to return to traditional attire to return to their homes or some persons leave events very early under the cover of darkness via cab or a ride and literally sneak in hence avoiding the arduous task of changing over. 

Of course in navigating public thoroughfare effeminacy in any shape is not accepted in certain parts of town dependent of course on how that area is run by the respective area leaders who are sometimes on the down low themselves but who reject outward displays of feminized aesthetics so as to maintain their control in the community.

The men have since found some solace with a popular drag queen for now but for how long that community based assisted living will be extended is left to be seen as everyone these days is feeling the economic pinch. One still has his job for now I was reliably informed as the news has not found its way to cause any economic displacement and with the advocacy structures themselves homeless after they were evicted via notice from the previous owners of the property as it was sold. The added problems of the homeless men in New Kingston still also a major issue with more reported chasings, clashes within the group, allegations of unlawful use of property by removing windows from JFLAG's vacated offices to gain access to electricity to charge their phones and the litany of woes reads on.

The other young man has returned home but is not able to offer any shared assistance as he resides with distant family member and hence must keep himself circumspect but emotional support I guess may work as he can be sure in the knowledge thus far that his identity of that of the outing has not travelled to his community which is also in St Catherine.

Meanwhile other NGOs/outlets are homeless themselves 

Jamaica AIDS Support (for Life) has also found itself without a roof over its head as they also got eviction notices as many speculate and rightfully so in my view that the dithering on dealing with homelessness for so may years, the deceptive explain aways and diversions with campaigns that for the most part do not directly impact the welfare issues that are screaming for attention. It is a shame that vision less leadership and a kind of contempt has led to this happening, if anyone had predicted that this would have happened ten years ago I would have dismissed it.

More displacements keep coming as well adding to the existing numbers and there seems to be no end in sight of this owing to the fact that homosexuality is getting so much coverage worldwide which filter into local media. The French passing gay marriage rights has reignited a fire-storm from the religious right movement mainly, entertainment figures and some radio commentators but that is to be expected, whether this will cause any spike in our jurisdiction when it comes to homo-negative or homophobic incidents is another matter as previous international occurrences suggest.

There is hardly any advice I can give here as with the best of intentions here that of concealment the clothes and by extension perceived orientation were revealed. Not all cross dressers can "pass" publicly and given the layout of the land where the young man resided a feminized aesthetic is not an option. 

Updates to come where available and I hope they are able to recover soon.

Peace and tolerance

H