- Our activism is continuing to evolve
in the next phase of Where Love Is Illegal,
is enduring to leverage our storytelling skills
so we can further amplify the voices
of LGBTQI+ communities around the world.
And we're doing just that in Jamaica.
Last month we were recording stories of survival.
So for the photo-interested people here,
we shifted here from the 4x5",
this is now 8x10" that we use.
I just make my life more and more difficult.
But we asked everyone to write their own testimonies.
But we sort of also moved up with technology as well,
and rather than just writing them
and me photographing their testimonies,
we asked people to read them and I filmed them.
So in the spirit of having, of amplifying voices,
we're gonna listen to Mo.
- Hi, my name is Monique.
I like to be called Mo.
I am an out member of the Jamaican LGBTQ community.
Jamaicans are very intolerant and homophobic.
Nonetheless, I live my life fearlessly.
It takes a lot of courage to live an openly gay life
in a place like Jamaica where people are so violent
towards gay people.
To be honest, I'm always on the alert,
and really on the defensive,
because when you have a predominantly male look like I do,
you can never tell when you may become a target.
I'm always cognizant of that,
and ready to go in defense mode.
I really love Jamaica; it's a beautiful place.
It's my homeland.
I just wish it were a safer place for LGBTQ Jamaicans
to live, love, laugh, be happy,
and to be free to be who we are.
- So, given that we are Witness Change,
and the change part is an important part of what we do,
we know that recording these nice stories is not enough.
And so we asked ourselves,
what more can we do, other than just document stories?
So this next phase, also is about working closely
with LGBTQ groups on the ground.
So we decided to do, in addition to portraits,
we have started to do workshops in the country
where these stories are being recorded.
And we're working with the communities there
with the aim that we hope that we can have
stories start to come from the community
and not just be about the community.
So, furthermore, there's more story-making, right.
And we still need to have those stories make a difference.
So I sat with the LGBT activists and we talked
about how can these stories make an impact locally?
So we brainstormed about different ideas of how
story-making can impact on the ground
and came up with an idea.
So, many times when I was working in Jamaica, people,
the reoccurring theme was this conversation
about navigating safe places.
And I didn't know what that meant at the time,
but they explained to me.
So they talk about, there are places
that they can literally, where they fear for their lives.
And they describe this dangerous mob mentality
where one of two things will happen
if they face abuse in the street, which is regularly, sadly.
So either they'll have someone call out
homophobic or transphobic abuse,
and everyone will fall silent.
Or, worse, people join in and you have this mob mentality
where things escalate and it becomes very, very dangerous.
But what there is not, is people standing up for them.
So there's that on one hand.
The other thing which they complained about a lot
is that 10 years ago, Time magazine did a story
naming Jamaica as the most homophobic country in the world.
Ten years later, they're still pretty pissed about it.
And so they would explain to me that actually
there are many allies in Jamaica.
It's just that they too don't want to come forward
because they face ridicule as well.
So they wanted to create a campaign where
they could use the stories they write
in the form of a letter and photographs,
in order to interact and engage allies,
and directly request that these allies
find a pledge to take a stand for them
when they need their help.
So we're in the very early stages of this work,
but what I'm going to do is share with you
one story written by Christina.
The line is rubbish, she recorded it on her phone
from Jamaica and sent it to us, it was very kind of her.
But what's really interesting is that
not only is it a request for allies,
but she's coming out in this letter
to some of her close friends.
And listen to her, already in her letter,
she knows what they're going to say,
and she's already sort of preempting the argument.
So it's interesting to hear how she expresses that.
- [Christina] By the time you read this,
I will have told you that I am bisexual.
To be completely honest, I cannot predict
how you will be responding, or what thoughts
will be running through your minds.
You're probably asking, why is your friend bisexual?
What can you do to change how I am?
Will she ever be happy?
What will everyone else think?
The first thing I want you to know
is that I have always been bisexual.
This is not a temporary phase
and it is not something I ever chose or decided to be.
I've thought about it a lot,
and as best as I can remember,
I first knew I was bisexual at age 10 or 11.
But even years earlier, I knew I was different.
I am completely convinced that being bisexual
is the way I was born, and nothing you
or anyone else ever did made be bisexual.
My natural orientation and preference
is towards men and women, and as for it being a choice,
my only choice, as I see it, has been whether to be
open and honest about my feelings,
or to continue to deny and hide them.
Being bisexual is simply part of who I am,
and a part I've been longing to share with you
for quite some time.
The question of telling you has been without doubt
the ultimate pressing issue on my mind
for quite a few years.
I knew it was something that would
eventually have to be done.
Of course, there was always the possibility
that I could just never tell you,
and keep that part of my life permanently hidden from you.
For one, you are too close and too important to me
for me to keep such an important part of my life from you.
Up till now, I have by default
excluded you from this part of my life,
but it has become painful to keep something
so important to me hidden from you.
I love and appreciate you,
Trishann, Krissann, Shantile,
and I want to give you the opportunity
to share this part of my life with me.
I would really appreciate your continuous
love and support to cushion the blows
and discrimination from the wider society,
and to stand with me and publicly say
you will support me despite me being bisexual.
My greatest fear is to be rejected by the people
I expect to be there for me,
so I am really hoping that you don't.
I want you to remember, Trishann, Krissann, and Shantile,
that I'm the same person today that I was yesterday.
I still want to enjoy being with you,
only now you know a little bit more about me.
And we now have before us a tremendous opportunity
to become closer than we ever have been,
a chance to share all my hopes and aspirations for my life.
I still love you and will always love you just the same,
and I hope you will be there for me.
Will you be my ally?
- So here's our group in Jamaica, and they and we
are very excited about making this project a reality.
So despite the success that we have had as
Where Love Is illegal in disseminating and sharing
these voices and amplifying voices,
one of our continuous struggles is funding.
So this is the one and only plug I'm going to make tonight
and that is, we need $15,000 to make this happen,
and if anyone is feeling particularly generous,
please let me know.
We're a registered charity, and a 501(c)(3), tax-deductible.
We'll make good use of your money.
So we keep moving on with this idea that
if we can create locally produced anti-stigma campaigns,
that's a really effective way
that we can be using storytelling.
So next week on Wednesday, I'll be going to Tunisia
where this work will continue.
The other thing that I want to point out is that
most of this work that we've been doing so far
has been in developing countries,
and most of this work has been done in the 75
countries where same-sex acts are illegal.
But we are acutely aware that the struggle goes on
in many countries around the world, including this one.
And we are aware because we read the news,
but also we're aware because many of the people
who share their stories with us, people like CJ,
are from here in this country.
So the next country after Tunisia is, the next chapter is,
we would like to do Where Love is Illegal USA.
There's been some really great gains in this country,
but those gains are fragile.
And we think it's really important that LGBTQI+ voices
continue to be heard in a significant way in this country
so that we don't risk having those gains disappear.
Not only that, while there are gains, there's also massive
progress still in many, many areas for many people.
So we think, in particular, we want to be able
to make some strong work about transgender people of color,
and homeless youth, and other issues,
and other very vulnerable groups.
So, okay, second plug:
if you're interested in doing anything on
Where Love is Illegal USA, let me know.
We need funding for that as well.
So we're proud of the work that we've done,
but we also recognize that it's just been a beginning.
And we know it's just a beginning because most days
we receive messages from people around the world
sharing their experiences.
And we actually feel like we're in a desperate rush
because we know that every day,
today, this week, last week, and next week,
every single day, people are dying because some consider
who they are or who they love to be unacceptable.
Unfortunately, our intervention was too late for B.
B died just three months after this photograph was taken.
He wasn't executed or murdered
like many others in his situation.
He was killed by poverty.
So you have to understand that to be LGBT in many countries
is to be desperately poor.
It means to be thrown out of schools and jobs,
abandoned by families, forced to flee abuse,
and so many end up on the margins of society.
I met B in the tin shack that was his home
in Cape Town, South Africa.
He fled to Cape Town from Kenya.
I sat with him on this tiny little bed
with my arm around him, trying to comfort him
as he wept about the man he dreamed of marrying,
a man who was now dead.
He told me about his relationship with this man,
he told me how it was a first-sight love.
And he told me about the apprehension of introducing
his partner to his family.
And he told me about running away from the mob
at his engagement party who were intent on killing them.
And he told me about his fiance being stabbed in the chest.
And he wept because he was heartbroken.
And he wept because he was too poor to pay his rent
and would be evicted any day.
And he wept because he saw no future.
And in the end, this lovely man died because
bigotry had made him too poor to be able to afford
the medical care he needed.
One of his friends informed me of his death,
and he told me that there was nothing to remember
B by, except for his story, and he begged that I tell it
so that we would remember B
even if it was only a sad memory.
So here I am telling you about B, like I do
whenever I get the chance to talk about this work,
in the hope that his memory will survive
and the tragic story of his life
can serve to save the lives of others.
As sad as B's story is, the more sad thing is that
there's thousands like B.
But that doesn't have to be the case.
I believe that we cannot care less for people
because they are further away, or a different religion,
nationality, skin color, gender, or sexuality.
With witnessing comes responsibility,
and with privilege comes obligation.
And none of us,
lesbian, gay, trans, bi, intersex, straight,
none of us are free until we are all free.
The survivors whose stories I've shared with you tonight
told them in the hope that people would listen
and their lives, and the lives of people in their community,
would become more free.
For many, it was the first time they shared.
And for many it was their first step into activism.
D and O shared their story because they hoped
people would hear their voices.
Before they were attacked, they were not activists.
Appearing in this photo was their first act to
defy those who would deny their love.
This young Russian couple were attacked
because they dared to walk in the street holding hands.
They wrote their testimony,
but they wrote it
as a dialogue between each other,
a paragraph each describing the night as it occurred.
But something unexpected happened.
There's this testimony of violence
turned into a love letter.
And I'm going to read you the end of it.
It ends with O reading to her partner,
"After the attack, I felt even more strongly
"how dear D is to me, and how scary the thought
"that I could lose her.
"The worst thing that I felt was an absolute
"inability to protect the one I loved, or even myself.
"Yes, now I look back on the street
"and look at every passing male
"as a possible source of danger.
"But every time now, when I'm in the street,
"when I take her by the hand, I do it consciously.
"It is my choice.
"D, hold my hand.
"This is my reward for your courage."
In the course of this social media campaign,
hundreds of thousands of people have liked and followed.
In places like this, forsurvivors like this,
that barely-conscious action is like a hand
reaching out, offering support, and a sign that says
that you're not alone.
A sign that says, I acknowledge your courage.
It says, who you are is natural, normal, and moral.
You deserve to be seen, and you need to be heard.
It is in these stories that have the silenced heard,
and the hidden seen, that we can connect.
We can connect online, we can connect through
brave organizations fighting for equality,
and we can connect through here.
And it is in that connection that there is a chance
that just maybe, maybe there is a bit of future.
A future where no one needs to cover their face
or change their name or hide who they are.
A future where everyone's story matters,
and a future where love is never illegal.
I'm very grateful to be given this opportunity
to talk to you tonight, because you've helped me
to fulfill my promise to the people whose stories
I said I would tell.
Today I act as their intermediary.
They allowed me to photograph them and record their words
in the hope they would be heard.
I'd like to thank you for listening.
Thank you.
(applause)