Is Jamaica the Most Homophobic Country in the Americas?

You can definitely make a strong case for it:

Today has been proclaimed 'Gay Eradication Day' by residents of the McGregor Gully community in East Kingston. Residents say that they will be taking action as a two-week notice given to all gays and lesbians to flee the community has now expired.

THE STAR learnt that about two weeks ago angry residents who declared that they were fed up with seeing the activities of several gay persons in their community, ordered that they leave by today or suffer the consequences.

Some residents who admitted to THE STAR that they are a part of the "gay clearing out" scheme said that it is being done to protect their families and the community on a whole.

Most Americans (in a different kind of base stereotyping) think of Jamaica as an island of happiness, home to marijuana and Bob Marley. Few realize that Jamaica is actually home to rampant homophobia that isn't even remotely veiled. Attacks on homosexuals on the island are not limited to verbal assault; Jamaican homosexuals often face very real violence if they come out of the closet, with nowhere to turn. Even the police get in on the act, committing abuses based on sexual orientation. It would be nice if this despicable (and that's being charitable) act of this community in Kingston was abnormal. Unfortunately, it's not - it's symptomatic of broader attitudes towards homosexual men and women in Jamaica, and there's just no sign of any aid coming to those who are threatened anytime soon.

Uncovering Lesbian History, circa 1909

Larry Harnisch uncovers a real gem of a story from 1909. Two women in Los Angeles were arrested for dressing up as men. There were laws on the books against women dressing as men. One woman supposedly was going to ride the rails from LA to San Francisco to visit her husband. She figured she couldn't ride them in her dress so her and a friend dressed as men. Then they started drinking beer with some other women, made a lot of noise which caused someone to call the police, and then were discovered and arrested for violating the crossdressing ordinance.

This is an incredibly fascinating stuff. First, I don't believe the visiting the husband story for a minute. I suspect this was an alibi in case these women were caught by the police. Second, we know much more about gay history than lesbian history because gay men were harassed by police much more. Because gays and lesbians couldn't really talk about their lives publically in 1909, we don't know much about it except through police records. So to see more information uncovered about early 20th century lesbian history is fantastic. Even if these women were not lesbians and really were just dressing as men to ride the rails, we still have an anti-cross dressing law on the book that at least applied to women, if not men. The women were released by the cops, but only by promising to leave the city, which suggests that a) they were poor and b) the cops really did see them as a threat.

Great stuff, if sad as well.