In my home country of Trinidad and Tobago, until April 12th of this year, I could be arrested and imprisoned for up to 25 years for having consensual sex with my male partner.

Any sexual intimacy between couples of the same sex was a crime (including sex between women). My government calls these acts “serious indecency”. They could imprison us for up to 25 years for penetrative sex and for 5 years for any other act of sexual intimacy. Gay and bi men, lesbian and bi women, trans people, all lived with the threat of this criminal law hanging over them.

My name is Jason Jones and I am a human rights defender. I challenged my Government in the High Court to change this situation and on April 12th 2018 the Court agreed to declare these laws unconstitutional. WE WON!!!

In his ruling on my case Justice Rampersad said:

My government is challenging this verdict; defending the archaic and discriminatory laws. On September 20th 2018, my legal team and I will again go before the courts to state our case that the High Court ruling should be upheld and this unjust law struck down.

But there's still work left to do to get us there.

We fell short of the last goal by £5,000 and I still need to raise at least £15,000 for my upcoming September Court case: for Court fees, transport and security for my lawyers, and the cost of printing documents for Court. Litigation is not cheap, even when you have the best lawyers working for you for free!

Your donation will ensure that 100,000 LGBTQ+ people have their day in Court, so that we can ensure the barbaric laws that criminalise us for being lesbian, gay, bisexual and trans are struck down for good.