Difference is as natural as breathing
Difference is as natural as breathing. How Guyana's highest court struck down a colonial law in 2018.
On 13 November 2018, the Caribbean Court of Justice, Guyana's highest court, declared a law from 1893 unconstitutional. It made it an offence to appear in public in the clothing of the opposite sex "for any improper purpose". A relic of British colonial rule that in everyday life mainly affected trans women.
In February 2009, police in Georgetown arrested several trans women. Their offence: they were wearing skirts, wigs or tights. They were detained without being told why. In court they were fined. The magistrate gave them a piece of advice to take away with them. They should go to church and give their lives to Jesus Christ.
Four of those affected fought back, supported by the organisation SASOD and by Guyana Trans United. It was a long road. The High Court and later the Court of Appeal upheld the ban as long as there was an "improper purpose". What exactly that meant, nobody said.
This was precisely where the five judges of the final court came in. The law was so vague that nobody could know when they were committing an offence. It violated the right to equal treatment and freedom of expression. The court also clearly criticised the magistrate's words: the bench was no place for proselytising. And then came a sentence that has been quoted often ever since. Difference is as natural as breathing.
Human rights organisations celebrated the decision as one of the most significant in the court's history. It strengthened trans people in a region where colonial morality laws still have an effect today. In Guyana itself, however, sex between men is still a crime. Even so, the 2018 ruling showed that such laws can be brought down in court.