HGP Nightly News – Three years after it was launched as a grassroots campaign, Guyana Together is celebrating a milestone it says shows the conversation around LGBT acceptance in Guyana is changing.
The campaign has now secured the backing of 250 businesses and civic organisations across the country, with supporters coming from sectors ranging from energy and law to tourism, agriculture, manufacturing, media, food and entertainment.
Guyana Together was launched in September 2023 by the Georgetown Chamber of Commerce and Industry, the Black Entrepreneurs Association, the Guyana Press Association and SASOD Guyana, with a stated aim of reducing stigma and prejudice against lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender people.
Three years later, the campaign says its growing list of endorsers is evidence that the issue is no longer being discussed only within advocacy circles.
For Shane Thomas, Youth Focal Point of the Guyanese Organisation of Indigenous Peoples, reaching 250 endorsing organisations shows that people from different parts of the country can find common ground around fairness and respect.
Thomas pointed to Heritage Month and the importance of recognising the dignity, identity and rights of every community, arguing that no Guyanese should be treated as a criminal or denied the opportunity to earn a living because of who they are or who they love.
The campaign is also getting support from the tourism sector.
Roselyn Sewcharran, Founder and Managing Director of Wanderlust Adventures GY Inc., said Guyana’s diversity is one of the country’s greatest strengths and argued that hospitality should extend beyond tourists to the way people are treated in workplaces and communities.
With Guyana’s tourism industry expanding and more international visitors arriving, Sewcharran said creating workplaces where people feel safe, respected and welcomed is increasingly important.
That same argument is being made in the restaurant industry.
Lennox Scott, Executive Chef and Co-Proprietor of Scotty’s Smoke House, said food has a way of bringing people together and that employers have a responsibility to ensure workers are treated fairly. His organisation is supporting Guyana Together’s call for stronger workplace protections based on sexual orientation, gender identity and gender expression.
From the oil and gas sector, Guyana Oil and Gas Support Services Inc. CEO Nicholas Deygoo-Boyer said the country’s expanding economy needs the best talent available — and that means creating workplaces where people can contribute without discrimination.
The campaign’s message goes beyond workplace treatment, however.
Guyana Together is also calling for equality, greater protection against discrimination and the repeal of laws that criminalise consensual same-sex intimacy.
The campaign points to polling which it says shows significant public support for those positions. According to its latest figures, 53.9 per cent of Guyanese support repealing the colonial-era law criminalising same-sex intimacy, while 72 per cent support workplace protections for LGBT people.
Over the past three years, Guyana Together has also worked with organisations including the Tourism and Hospitality Association of Guyana, the Guyana Public Service Union, the Clerical and Commercial Workers Union, the Women’s Chamber of Commerce and Industry of Guyana and the Rotary Club of Georgetown.
Its approach has not been limited to speeches and statements.
One of the campaign’s more visible features has been a series of videos built around personal stories of acceptance.
The most recent, released in June, featured businessman Harold Hopkinson speaking about his love for his gay son, who has since migrated, while calling for Guyana’s laws to be repealed.
Earlier videos focused on a lesbian daughter and the woman who became a mother figure in her life, a friendship between model and pageant queen Kristal Inshan and fashion designer Avinash Narine, and the bond between sister Kaisha Davis and her transgender brother Tarique Williams.
Another featured 80-year-old grandmother Romanie Simpson and Hollister, a transgender woman who lost her mother at a young age. Simpson’s message centred on the love and support she continues to give her.
Those stories point to what Guyana Together appears to be trying to do differently: move the conversation away from abstract arguments and put real relationships and families at the centre of it.
Now, with 250 organisations on board and three years behind it, the campaign says the next challenge is turning those endorsements into action and lasting change.
