Murdered Jamaican trans teenager Dwayne Jones suffered bullying from father and at school
New details have emerged about the life of a murdered transgender teenager in Jamaica.
According to the Associated Press, Jones was relentlessly teased at high school and kicked out of the family home at 14 by a bullying father.
The 16-year-old was wearing female clothing at the time of the killing and attacked after telling a friend the teenager was attending a “straight” party as a girl for the first time.
“When I saw Dwayne’s body, I started shaking and crying,” said Khloe, one of three transgender friends who shared a derelict house with the teenager in the hills above the north coast city of Montego Bay.
“It was horrible. It was so, so painful to see him like that,” she added.
Yet it appears many in Jamaica fail to have any sympathy for the tragedy.
“Judging by comments made on social media, most Jamaicans think Dwayne Jones brought his death on himself for wearing a dress and dancing in a society that has made it abundantly clear that homosexuals are neither to be seen nor heard,” said Annie Paul, a blogger and publications officer at Jamaica’s campus of the University of the West Indies.
However, Dane Lewis, director of J-FLAG, Jamaica’s only LGBT rights lobby group, said there were increasing “pockets of tolerance” on the island.
“We can say that we are becoming more tolerant. And thankfully that’s because of people like Dwayne who have helped push the envelope.”
So far no one has been charged in relation to Dwayne Jones’s death.
