“I wouldn’t want them to grow up in a place like this”

Neville is not his real name and he is not easily identifiable in this picture. This was not the way he wanted it, in fact, he wanted to be called by his full name and reveal his face in this blog post. However, I was concerned for his safety and after some discussion, we decided on a pseudonym and this picture.

Neville was eager to reveal everything because he has endured a tough journey to accept himself and live as he wishes. Neville is gay, and of course this is just one aspect of who he is, but because of the homophobia endemic to Jamaica, this characteristic endangers him.

“At this point I don’t care about what society says anymore. If I did, I would want to go away right now. What I care about is my happiness and my well being. If I can make it here I can make anywhere,” he says, referring to the challenges of living in Kingston. One of his best friends recently moved to the U.S., and Neville misses him terribly, but he is trying to make a life in Kingston.

Growing up, Neville knew he was different from other boys in that he was what is typically considered feminine. He like to play the games that the girls played in school. “I was very girly and feminine and I was the only guy behaving like that. I was considered abnormal.”

People started to give him trouble for his behaviour. He has three brothers and three sisters, including a twin, with whom he is close. The others, not so much. “If I talk to them once a year, I’m lucky,” he says of his parents. He lived mainly with his father, who clearly favoured his sisters. They were provided with everything they needed, and more, while Neville was neglected. “My father said I already gotten what I needed- food, clothing and shelter, while my twin sister and other sisters got things they asked for and I didn’t. I always had one pair of shoes.”

Neville grew up in Kingston and got into plenty of conflicts at school with classmates and teachers. He was loud and arrogant, he says, in an attempt to cope with feelings he could not understand. He used to steal from his classmates and even contemplated suicide in primary school. This was around the time that Neville’s older sister was stabbed at school.

As Neville started high school, he decided to buckle down and achieved good grades. He stopped acting out as much and began to date guys. He eventually told his father he was gay, at which point, he was kicked out of his home. Neville managed to finish high school, but he began a period of having nowhere to live and no income. He stayed on the streets for awhile and people’s verandas and picked up the odd job here and there. He finally secured a good job in Montego Bay but the temptation of seeing U.S. dollars proved too much and he took $100 from his employer to pay a fee to apply for a Visa. He was going to replace the money, but it was too late. He returned to Kingston, trying to ignore his mother’s urging in his ear to change and become a straight man.

“At that point, I vowed to make a change,” he says. Neville met up with a group of supportive friends, completed some vocational training and participated in some personal development sessions. “That changed me entirely in the sense that I viewed myself now differently as a gay guy AND not just a gay guy. It allowed me to centre myself and make goals. I have a brighter future and I know that my family doesn’t own me and I don’t depend on them.”

Neville has been attacked several times physically and verbal attacks are a daily occurrence. But he handles them with grace now, whereas before he would fight fire with fire. Today, he is just trying to live a peaceful life, one that all of us desire.

“Now I want to go on other side to see what it feels like to have good friends, money, a home and job.” And he wants to do it in Kingston, until he has children. If he has a family, he would want to raise his children overseas. “I wouldn’t want my child to grow up in a place like this,” he says.