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Image: (L-R) Marvin Livan and Peter Pooran

Written by Subraj Singh, Society against Sexual Orientation Discrimination (SASOD)

Earlier this year, I spoke to Marvin Livan and Peter Pooran, a young same-sex couple, who identify as LGBTQ+ Guyanese, as well as church-going Christians. Their story is unusual and beautiful and serves as a reminder that there are still people in the world who use their faith to do good, people who try to represent the tenets of the Bible, which teaches love and acceptance for all people.

Marvin and Peter use their religion in a way that brings them closer together as a couple. Perhaps this is unsurprising given that the duo actually met in a church. Prior to recounting the events of the day when they first saw each other, Marvin acknowledged that although he had been married to a woman before, he had come to a point in his life where he had to authentically face his attraction to men, and therefore, when he saw Peter in church on that particular day, it was easy for Marvin to approach and talk to him.

The church tradition helped to facilitate the meeting of the two young men, since it is customary in for the congregation to mingle at the end of the service, to converse or maybe just hang out. It was in one of these moments after the church-service that Marvin took Peter’s copy of the Bible and wrote his number at the back, with the advice to call him if Peter ever wanted to talk. Although there was an attraction from their first meeting, Peter did not call Marvin right away. After several months, Peter’s call led to the men conversing more often and this laid the foundation for their romantic relationship.

Marvin notes that even though their relationship has the normal ups and downs that are experienced by every young couple, he believes that their relationship is strong, especially with the emphasis that they put on being together and on being faithful to each other. He also says that he has been accepted as a member of the Anglican Church and that although there are people within the church who know about his relationship with Peter, he is still accepted and he still maintains his status as an avid churchgoer. Marvin hopes to one day become a priest and to be able to invite LGBTQ+ persons into the “house of God.” As a priest, he hopes one day to facilitate persons to serve in the church if they have the call to serve, regardless of their sexual orientation and gender identity. Marvin credits his love of church and the joy he feels being a Christian to his religious upbringing and to those who encouraged him to become an altar boy when he was a child.

Peter for his part shares that he is as religious as his partner, pointing out that he has been going to church since he was seven years old. When he met Marvin, he was hesitant about attending his partner’s church. However, after seeing the impact the Anglican Church had on Marvin, Peter finally decided to give it a chance. He describes his experience of stepping into the church in terms of profound sanctity and credits this joy and sense of fulfillment he experienced in the church as the reason for his continued presence there.

Peter believes everyone, regardless of their sexual orientation and gender identity, should come forward to serve the Lord. This is something that Marvin also advocates for, as he maintains that the church can be a place of education on gender and sexual diversity and a place for LGBTQ+ persons to meet other people who intersect with the Christian community, such as Marvin and himself. Marvin firmly believes that Jesus loves LGBTQ+ people exactly as they are.

Peter plans on coming out to the priest of the church they attend, and this truly seems to be important to him, which is unsurprising since many gay people long to be accepted in any social group or institution as their true, authentic selves. He is convinced that the reactions of fellow parishioners to him will not change and that he will continue to be accepted in the church, as there are already some people in the church who are aware of their relationship.

On the reactions of other sections of the Christian community who preach homophobia, Marvin contends that the evidence for a case against homosexuality in the Bible is weak and sees his sexuality as a blessing from God. He also emphasizes the fact that everyone sins and that there are aspects of the Bible that are conveniently left unaddressed by homophobes in order to maintain a lack of culpability and repentance for the sins they also commit that are outlined in the Bible.

Both men believe that human beings are human beings and they should be allowed into the church because sexual and gender minorities have the same emotions and beliefs as everyone else, and people should have the right to believe in and serve God.

Being so vocal about the church and sexuality issues places Marvin and Peter in a special category of Christians who are able to reconcile their love for each other and their religion in a way that does not require them to compromise their feelings about who they are and about the church in any way. They firmly believe that the church can support LGBTQ+ people to live their truth and that it is the Christian way to welcome all, to represent goodness and kindness, regardless of who the person is. They both are extraordinary not only in their love for each other but in their dedication to their faith and the ways in which they want these two major parts of themselves to come together and work for the betterment of the entire world.

The Office of the Prime Minister, National AIDS Coordinating Committee (NACC), Republic of Trinidad and Tobago in collaboration with the Pan American Health Organization hosted an HIV Combination Prevention Meeting with national partners in September 2018.

The main objective of the meeting was to strengthen and enhance the national capacity to provide comprehensive HIV/STIs services for adults and adolescents.

The Honourable Ayanna Webster-Roy, Minister of State in the Office of the Prime Minister in her feature address at the opening ceremony stated that “the empowerment of citizens to their sexual and reproductive health essentials, requires that we look at all the systems that need to be put in place to ensure that the policies, facilities, education, services, and community support are available to prevent and control the spread of HIV and other Sexually Transmitted Infections”.

She emphasized that everyone has a part to play and that all stakeholders can support the NACC to achieve its mandate to end AIDS by 2030 by reducing the population’s susceptibility to HIV and AIDS.

Dr. Eldonna Boisson, PAHO Country Representative stated that we know of the ambitious elimination goals for HIV/STI and that these goals require an accelerated response to HIV and STIs. She indicated that in order to achieve these goals, high-impact intervention, technologies and approaches were needed. She called for “focused actions tailored to the needs of key populations”.

Dr. Ayanna Sebro, Technical Director, NACC Secretariat in her address emphasized the need to “consider opportunities for the prevention of other sexually transmitted infections, gender-based violence, poverty, social determinants and other matters that affect the sexual and reproductive health and rights of the citizens of Trinidad and Tobago within one service”. She noted that this type of integrative approach is one that will not only benefit the clients but will also improve the efficiency of services.

Over three days, participants addressed the opportunities to collaborate, partner and create synergies to promote institutional innovation and effectiveness for service delivery, intervention, treatment and prevention of HIV and STIs. The Meeting agreed that collaboration is key to ensuring that the most vulnerable populations have access to HIV prevention.

Image: (L-R) Nurse Sieds Wildenbeest, Nurse Willemien Dorama, Dr. Frank Kroon and Dr. Kees Brinkman.

People Living with HIV (PLHIV), civil society organizations, health navigators, peer counselors and “peer buddies” participated in a knowledge sharing exercise facilitated by The Double Positive Foundation, a Suriname-based civil society organization.  The event was implemented in collaboration with the National AIDS Programme Suriname.

The exercise encompassed valuable advice for PLHIV on the medications intended for Tuberculosis and HIV that may counteract with each other.

The presentations were conducted by Dr. Kees Brinkman, Dr. Frank Kroon, Nurse Willemien Dorama and Nurse Sieds Wildenbeest.

At the culmination of the activity, Dr. Kees Brinkman presented Ms. Ethel Pengel, Chair of Double Positive with a copy of “Hello Gorgeous”, a magazine produced by PLHIV.  The subject of the magazine’s cover story, Netherlands activist Ms. Janice Telgt, also attended the event to meet with participants of the knowledge sharing activity.

Image: (L-R) Ms. Ethel Pengel, Chair, Double Positive, Dr. Kees Brinkman and Ms. Janice Telgt

The Organization of Eastern Caribbean States (OECS) Regional Coordinating Mechanism (RCM) leveraged the strategic advantage of the media by hosting a workshop on how to create effective HIV Advocacy Public Service Announcements (PSAs).

The initiative was facilitated by Dr. Allyson Leacock, Executive Director of LIVE UP: The Caribbean Media Alliance and Chair, Barbados Broadcasting Authority (BBA). The 3-day workshop brought together key population advocates and select Health officials, media operatives and partners to foster alliances for stigma reduction.

Key Populations (KPs) in the Caribbean, People Living with HIV (PLHIV), Men who have sex with men (MSM), sex workers and the Transgender community still face troubling levels of stigma and discrimination in their communities.

Discrimination remains a barrier to accessing HIV prevention services and retaining and ensuring adherence levels.  It also takes a toll on the mental health of PLHIV. KPs often lack the resources, funding and sensitive services to deal with these issues.  Sensitized KPs can engage the media who can become advocates and partners in the cause.  There is evidence that the media can be utilized as an effective tool for advocacy, strategy, and programming to address structural barriers.

Dr. Leacock challenged the participants to change the generic HIV stigma narrative and empower key populations to create their own messages and have their voices heard while enlightening audiences to love, protect and respect all people.

Given her 12-year track record of training media on how to report responsibly and accurately on the multi-faceted and complex issue of HIV and having created over 100 behaviour change PSA media campaigns,  Dr. Leacock used this experience to effectively engage key populations on ways in which to create their own messages and use the power of media to become unwitting advocates to reduce stigma and discrimination in our region.

According to Dr. Leacock “the workshop was designed to be interactive through sessions with practical exercises, details of advocacy and the multiple media tools available that can be used by advocates, while Health officials and partners were shown tangible examples of ways to reduce stigma in their services, using the approaches they understand”.

This workshop and the programme that it supports proved to be unique because of the mutual benefits for the media, key populations and Ministry officials who were provided with the opportunity to collaborate on their own PSAs.

The OECS RCM used its grant not only to build its stigma reduction capacity but also to build the capacity of several local Civil Society Organizations (CSOs) that are working on stigma reduction advocacy programming as well. Dr. Leacock noted, “Giving key populations the tools as well as the platform with which to amplify their efforts and voices is novel and unprecedented”.

She highlighted that while the objective of the workshop was to produce one PSA, the media operatives involved in the training offered further guidance and expertise, which resulted in the production of three PSAs.