Angeline Jackson - Funny Gyal: My Fight Against Homophobia in Jamaica

Funny Gyal

Angeline Jackson with Susan McClelland

Funny Gyal

My Fight Against Homophobia in Jamaica

Copyright Angeline Jackson, 2022

All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise (except for brief passages for purpose of review) without the prior permission of Dundurn Press. Permission to photocopy should be requested from Access Copyright.

Publisher and acquiring editor: Scott Fraser | Editor: Jess Shulman

Cover designer: Laura Boyle

Cover images: Jalna Broderick (bottom left); Reece Ford (top right)

Library and Archives Canada Cataloguing in Publication

Title: Funny gyal : my fight against homophobia in Jamaica / Angeline Jackson ; with Susan McClelland.

Names: Jackson, Angeline, author. | McClelland, Susan, author.

Identifiers: Canadiana (print) 20220140979 | Canadiana (ebook) 20220141487 | ISBN 9781459749191 (softcover) | ISBN 9781459750586 (hardcover) | ISBN 9781459749207 (PDF) | ISBN 9781459749214 (EPUB)

Subjects: LCSH: Jackson, Angeline. | LCSH: LesbiansJamaicaBiography. | LCSH: LesbiansJamaicaSocial conditions. | LCSH: GaysJamaicaSocial conditions. | LCSH: GaysLegal status, laws, etc.Jamaica. | LCSH: HomophobiaJamaica. | LCSH: Gay rightsJamaica. | LCSH: LesbiansIdentity. | LCGFT: Autobiographies.

Classification: LCC HQ75.4.J33 A3 2022 | DDC 306.76/63092dc23

We acknowledge the support of the Canada Council for the Arts and the Ontario Arts Council for our publishing program. We also acknowledge the financial support of the Government of Ontario, through the Ontario Book Publishing Tax Credit and Ontario Creates, and the Government of Canada.

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To my LGBTQ and womens rights activist ancestors both living and deceased, I thank you for your strength and courage. I love you.

To LGBTQ and womens rights activists active, on hiatus, or retired, thank you. Be kind to yourself. Take the breaks you need. Find communities to support you. I love you.

To future LGBTQ and womens rights activists, Im sorry this work still needs to continue, but thank you for taking up the charge. Learn about the people who have gone before you. Create communities. I love you.

To LGBTQ and women survivors of violence, Im sorry. Im sorry the world can be such a shitty place. Im sorry you have to be strong. Do what you need to do to create healing in the way that is best for you. I love you.

To my direct ancestors, Grandma Pearl, Grandma Vernice, Uncle Anthony, I know you see me. I know you are proud. I know you love me.

For Sasha. I love you.

This is a true story. All the people in this book are real. However, to protect identities, some names and characteristics have been changed. Dialogues have been recreated based on memory. Some liberties have been taken in terms of timelines.

funny gyal feels like a memory and a movie. every sentence vivid. and in countless moments, it feels like my own story. but it isnt mine. it is angeline jacksons story. we have so many tales among us within the lgbtqi+ community. unbelievable stories and accounts that could not, because of fear, b uttered before. so they remained untold and in the shadows. from the beginning, only the assumptions and lies of our existence managed to take root. i am happy to b alive to witness angelines testament.

i met angeline through a mutual friend, maurice tomlinson, an lgbtqi human rights lawyer and activist i greatly admire. i have never imagined myself an activist since i am extremely private and reclusive. but i also believe that experience and truths r meant to be told. to be shared so that others now and in future generations do not feel so alone or afraid. i honour, praise, and toast angeline and all the lgbtq writers of poems and books, especially the writers of the real shit.

angeline is a true storyteller. after all she has endured, she still leads with love, compassion, and humour. i totally relate to funny gyal because mi funny tuh. i was shaking my head reading the whole time up and down and side to side, thinking, oh my god! wow! sigh, yes! yes! yasssss!

i had a gift that made it easy for others to confide in me. in my journey, i met quite a few who were also violently gang-raped (corrective rape) to fix them from being gay to straight. it is a real thing that happened and still does to this day. jamaica is homophobic with a rape culture with deep roots. deep roots that lead back to the slave trade, colonization, and the generational trauma that, as angelines father says, left holes in us. it is time we all regain our identities and power, authentic power, through sharing of our stories, our vulnerabilities, our dreams, and our loves. that we see where we have tripped, not fallen, and become whole, each and every one of us.

i was twelve years old when i was raped. it was too much to process. i did not want to b gay, so i blocked the attack out. a survival tactic. only when i came out in 2012 did i start to remember everything.

watching angeline with president obama that day publicly speak about us out loud without outrage from the audience was a first. i had been heartbroken since my ordeal and how i was treated by elders and authorities. i often repeat this quote that i read somewhere: my countrymen broke my heart more than any lover could.

seeing the activism work that angeline and others like her do is personally heartwarming and gives me hope. it reminds me of a silent wish i made back then at twelve. that someday, people like us would get the courage to give the much-needed light to what it is truly like to live in shoes like ours and to stand up for the human rights we deserve. some people say a lot, including the more liberal-minded: we dont care whom u love or what u do behind closed doors. they just dont want us to speak on it or take up space. well, times are a changing, and i luv to see it.

i am filled with gratitude to b a witness to angelines truth exposed on every page. funny gyal deserves light. our stories are vital for change. our stories r powerful and validate our humanity. our stories r necessary to foster knowledge and to ignite understanding and compassion. lgbtqi stories matter.

i wish u all the very best, angeline. thank u _/|\_

diana king

World-renowned reggae-fusion artist, singer, and songwriter, Diana King was the first Jamaican singer-songwriter and recording artist to publicly come out. They were born and raised in Spanish Town, St. Catherine, Jamaica.