Teen Murdered By Angry Mob

Dwayne Jones was relentlessly
teased in high school for being
effeminate until he dropped out.                 
His  father not only kicked him out of the
house at the age of 14 but also
helped jeering neighbours push the
youngster from the rough Jamaican
slum where he grew up.

By David McFadden photo By age 16, the teenager was dead -

beaten, stabbed, shot and run over
by a car when he showed up at a
street party dressed as a woman.
His mistake: confiding to a friend
that he was attending  a "straight"
party as a girl for the first time in
his life.

"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.
Like many transgender and gay
people in Jamaica, Khloe wouldn't
give a full name out of fear.
"It was horrible. It was so, so
painful to see him like that."

International advocacy groups often
portray this Caribbean island as the
most hostile country in the Western
Hemisphere for gay and
transgender people. After two
prominent gay rights activists were
murdered, a researcher with the U.S
based Human Rights Watch in 2006
called the environment in Jamaica
for such groups "the worst any of
us has ever seen".

Local activists have since disputed
that label, but still say homophobia
is pervasive. Dwayne's horrific July
22 murder has made headlines in
newspapers on the island and
stirred calls in some quarters for
doing more to protect Jamaica's
gay community, especially those
who live on the streets and resort to
sex work.