To celebrate International Transgender Day of Visibility, we interviewed Candacy McEwan, Founder of Guyana Trans United, who talks about her dedication to the trans community in Guyana. For her, trans people have been existence forever, yet they continue to face discrimination and are blamed for issues that have nothing to do with them. Candacy was one four litigants, along with the national LGBT organisation, Society Against Sexual Orientation Discrimination (@SASODGuyana), in the 2018 case, McEwan et al v. Attorney General of Guyana (2018). The litigants challenged the Guyana on its ‘cross-dressing’ laws on the basis that they were unconstitutional. Candacy and her fellow litigants won their case at the Caribbean Court of Justice, with the court describing Guyana's laws as 'unconstitutionally vague' and without legitimate purpose.
Trans and gender diverse people are often particularly vulnerable to harassment, discrimination and violence from both state and non-state actors, and are uniquely impacted by multiple types of criminalising laws. Building on existing research on the experiences of trans people and the law, this report aims to provide a contribution towards filling the gap in […]
In 2013, Section 153(1)(xlvii) of the Summary Jurisdiction (Offences) Act, Chapter 8:02 was challenged in the High Court of Guyana court in Quincy McEwan et al. v. AG of Guyana. The Court rejected the various arguments put forward by the applicants which argued that the provision violated the Constitution of Guyana. In February 2017, the […]
The Human Dignity Trust is involved in a series of cases underway in the Eastern Caribbean seeking to challenge colonial-era laws that criminalise LGBT people.
