Violence against LGBTQ people in Belize
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History
Violence against LGBTQ people may not have been so widespread in precolonial days, as buccaneers-turned-Baymen are thought to have been relatively liberal towards same-sex intimacy (ostensibly due to the scarcity of women back then). Early Maya and Creole Baymen may have been similarly tolerant (ostensibly due to possibly liberal Mesoamerican and West African customs prior to European contact). The establishment of Christian parishes in 1776 (Anglican, then others), replacement of Baymen's custom with British common law in 1840, and passing of the Criminal Code Act 1888 would have likely quashed any such tolerance by the late 19th century by formally criminalising non-heteronormative and non-cisnormative acts and expressions. This state of lawful intolerance of and violence towards queer Belizeans is thought to have remained unchallenged through the 20th and into the 21st century.
The 2000s saw the country's earliest efforts to curb queerphobic violence, beginning with the founding of the United Belize Advocacy Movement (UNIBAM) in 2006. Notable amongst these have been the 2013 government-backed gender policy (government policy for gender equality), public queer pride celebrations since 2015, the successful UNIBAM case in 2016, Belize's acceptance of most UN Universal Periodic Review recommendations regarding queer people in 2018, and the 2020 bipartisan Equal Opportunities Bill (for equal opportunity, or against discrimination on prohibited grounds).
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Types
Acts of overt violence against LGBTQ people by private citizens have been unlawful since Belize's founding (as with overtly violent acts against any person), and seem to be frowned upon across the West Indies today (2020s). Such offences are nonetheless not unheard of, with queer Belizeans being subjected to physical or sexual assaults, and even murders, by virtue of being queer (hate crimes). For instance, UNIBAM recorded "over 80 murders of LGBT persons" in 1995–2021. Queer Belizeans are further subject to not-so-overt acts of violence, including verbal harassment, emotional abuse, deprivation of services (housing, schooling, employment, healthcare), and exclusion from spaces (family, social, religious, business). Altogether, a 2022 ReportOUT (a UK charity) poll found 88 percent of queer Belizeans had experienced some form of violence, mostly verbal abuse (30 percent), online abuse (24), threats of violence (20), and violent physical or sexual assaults (11 percent). Similarly, the Caribbean Vulnerable Communities Coalition (CVC; a Jamaican charity) recorded 50 physical and non-physical violent incidents against queer people in Belize in 2018–2022 (mostly gender-based violence, physical abuse, verbal abuse, and emotional abuse, in descending order), most of which occurred in the community or workplace, with victims overwhelmingly opting to forego official action against perpetrators. This compared to 189 such incidents recorded by CVC for 2013–2018 (mostly physical violence, and verbal harassment, in descending order).
Acts of state violence against queer nationals take both physical forms (police brutality), and non-physical forms (police harassment; abuse of authority; and deprivation of rights, liberties, and services). For instance, eight percent of queer Belizeans reported having experienced police brutality in a 2022 poll, while a further thirteen percent reported having been blackmailed by police, and eight percent having been harassed or harmed by other servants of the Crown (defence forces, social services, and so on). Similarly, though Section 53 of the Criminal Code Act 1981 ostensibly applied to "every person who has carnal intercourse against the order of nature", the High Court found in 2016 that the Crown had been using said statute to disproportionately target queer people. As of 2024, various of the rights, liberties, and services afforded to straight and cisgender Belizeans are lawfully denied to their LGBTQ peers.
Causes
Prejudice against LGBTQ people is widely deemed the primary cause of or motive for violence against them. Belizean society today (2020s) still presents relatively widespread levels of intolerance towards their queer members. Since the 2000s, the country has consistently scored in the 4–5 range (representing relatively middling acceptance of queer people) in the Global Acceptance Index (a standardised aggregate of global polls on attitudes towards queer people) by the Williams Institute. A 2022 ReportOUT (UK charity) poll found only 16 percent of queer Belizeans felt safe enough to be openly themselves amongst their religious community, compared to with healthcare staff (37 percent), employers (45), family (69), and close friends (89 percent). On the upside, some surveys indicate possibly diminishing levels of bigotry. For instance, a 2023 Latin American Public Opinion Project (LAPOP) poll found only 53 percent of Belizeans strongly disapproved of gay marriage (down from highs of 83 and 82 percent in 2012 and 2014, respectively), while only 37 percent strongly disapproved of gay candidates for office (down from highs of 59 and 67 percent in 2012 and 2014, respectively). Early 2010s polls found similarly heightened levels of queerphobic sentiment as the early LAPOP surveys. A 2013 poll by Caribbean Development Research Services (CADRES; a private Barbadian pollster) found 25 and 14 percent of Belizean men and women (respectively) hated gay people (when asked whether they "accept, tolerate or hate homosexuals", these respondents selected hate), while 47 and 28 percent of them (men and women respectively) would not socialise with gay people. Similarly, a 2012 Caribbean Community (CARICOM) poll found 81 percent of West Indian (including Belizean) teens "indicated that homosexuality was looked upon negatively by them".
Theories on what drives queerphobic prejudice in Belize vary a bit. For West Indian (including Belizean) men, Rosina Wiltshire (of the aforementioned 2012 CARICOM poll) suggested their significantly greater (than women's) prejudice might stem from their (strongly socially-reinforced) fear of being ridiculed as sissies, and thus of being deemed not real men (lacking manliness). Authors of the 2013 CADRES study drew similar conclusions from their comparable findings. A similar mechanism (machismo) has been suggested for Mestizo men. More generally though (for Belizean men and women), some studies have suggested that the Crown (via discriminatory laws, policies, and practices) and influential personalities and institutions in politics, in media, and in culture (via queerphobic rhetoric) both sanction and foster such intolerance. Further contributing factors may include HIV/AIDS stigma, classism, and ignorance or misunderstanding of issues affecting queer people. Nevertheless, the most often cited driver of bigotry against queer people is religious (specifically Christian right or fundamentalist) intolerance or zealotry.
Further causes of violence against queer people may include domestic or intimate partner violence.
Polls
Legacy
Violence against LGBTQ people is deemed detrimental to their mental and physical health, safety of person, and financial security. These negative outcomes are most acute amongst the most vulnerable classes within the queer community, including children and teens, transgender people, people living with HIV/AIDS, and detainees.
A number of measures (both official and unofficial) have been taken in an effort to curb said violence. Notable examples include the work of various queer charities (public awareness, political advocacy, support services), that of several allied organisations (women's, HIV/AIDS, human rights), and even that of official bodies (several). As of 2022 though, a majority (57 percent) of queer Belizeans did not agree that there were enough support services available to them, with a further one in five reporting they had no support network (not even informal, like friends or family).
In popular culture, this sort of violence first gained visibility via news coverage of the late 2010 filing of the UNIBAM case, followed by heated debate for and against LGBTQ rights in 2011. In scholarship, violence against queer Belizeans remains mostly within the purview of grey literature (like NGO reports).