Kenita Placide
The GO Visible Award is a recognition for the courage and determination that young LGBT leaders show in hostile surroundings. The award should help them make their work sustainable.
Saint Lucia is a dangerous place to be gay. In 2005, 2006 and 2007 respectively, three of Placide’s LGBTI friends were brutally murdered. She said, “we never felt justice was served because of how those investigations went”. She herself was held up at knife-point, just before she was due to leave for a meeting with the Ministry of Health.
Kenita Placide is one of the best known campaigners for gay rights in the Caribbean island of St Lucia, where men can be sent to jail for having sex with men. It is not a crime to be lesbian - but Kenita has faced a lot of hostility and threats to her life as she tells Jo Fidgen.
Think it’s hard to be gay in the United States? Kenita Placide, from St. Lucia, humbly describes her courage in the face of astonishing adversity.
Kenita Placide Testimony
The vision remains however, a united and strong front line of LGBTQI human rights defenders, standing shoulder to shoulder to stem the tide that erodes our freedoms.
I was on my way to the meeting when a black car pulled up. Two men jumped out, put a knife to my throat and told me I should not be speaking on public television about batiman [gay men]. And the next time I would appear on TV I would be a dead woman.”
Kenita Placide is a human rights, HIV and LGBT activist. She is the Co-Executive Director of United and Strong Inc. (U&S), Saint Lucia's first and only LGBT organisation. She's held the position for the past six years, delivering advcacy, running programmes and working with the media. Saint Lucia is a dangerous place to be LGBT. In 2005, 2006 and 2007 respectively, three of Placide's friends were brutally murded for being LGBT. Since 2014 Kenita has served at the Women's Secretariat for the International Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Trans and Intersex Association. She has been on the forefront of bringing LGBT issues into discussion throughout the Anglo-Caribbean and international community.
Lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender (LGBT) people living in Saint Lucia face legal challenges not experienced by non-LGBT members of the population.
