On Tuesday, July 16, SASOD Guyana hosted a Analysis Symposium, as a part of the organisation’s twenty-first anniversary celebrations.
The presenters had been Alessandra Hereman, who introduced the analysis proposal for her Grasp’s thesis of Alessandra Hereman titled “Gender, Technology, Genres: A Family tree of a Historical past of Transgressive Experiences and Embodiments in Postcolonial Guyana, circa Seventies to Nineteen Eighties” and Dr. Nastassia Rambarran, who introduced the findings particularly associated to Guyana from her doctoral thesis titled, “A Comparability of Guyana and Barbados with respect to Colonial Legacies, Transnational Processes and Decolonial Actions concerned in Queer Activism.”
The occasion was held at Herdmanston Lodge Lodge in Queenstown, Georgetown, and was effectively attended by the diplomatic corps, elected officers, civil society advocates, worldwide assist staff and LGBTQ+ activists.
Alessandra Hereman is a transgender Guyanese and a candidate for the Masters in Philosophy in Interdisciplinary Gender Research at UWI St. Augustine. Hereman is the primary brazenly transgender individual to graduate from the College of Guyana in 201, with a Bachelor of Social Sciences Diploma in Sociology (Cross with Distinction). She is an articulate activist for human rights of transgender individuals and different marginalised teams in Guyana and the Caribbean. Her thesis proposes to doc the life tales of queer and trans individuals in early, post-colonial Guyana, with a purpose to counter the false narratives of queer and trans Guyanese being a comparatively latest import.
Dr. Nastassia Rambarran is a Guyanese-Barbadian researcher, author, doctor and public well being guide, based mostly in Barbados. Her thesis is centred on a historic and sociological examine of queer activism in Guyana and Barbados, and attracts closely from archival sources and interviews. She started her presentation by drawing consideration to early LGBTQ+ organizing in Guyana in the course of the early 2000s.
On the time, there have been solely a pair organisations targeted on selling LGBTQ+ rights. Dr. Rambarran emphasised the important function which SASOD Guyana throughout this era, particularly within the context of selling human rights by using worldwide mechanisms on the stage of the United Nations and the Inter-American human rights system. The evolution of SASOD Guyana progressed by public occasions such because the then “Portray the Spectrum” LGBTQ+ movie pageant, which Dr. Rambarran emphasised, is a crucial option to promote neighborhood.
Over the 2006-2008 interval, SASOD Guyana expanded its work and started partaking with worldwide organisations. Dr. Rambarran additionally shared that the motion was initially perceived as upper-class organisation and never accessible to the lots and in response, SASOD Guyana held its first occasion aimed toward a wider class viewers in 2006.
Though many strides have been made by LGBTQ+ organisations in Guyana, she famous that there are nonetheless areas for enchancment. These embrace lowering motion fragmentation, growing illustration of girls within the motion, and growing inclusiveness as some organisations are perceived to be affiliated with one racial group.
Particularly, the low participation of individuals from indigenous communities within the inside areas and their entry to organisations like SASOD Guyana stay a major problem. “Regardless of these challenges, LGBTQ+ activism and organising in Guyana is stronger than ever,” Dr. Rambarran concluded.
