Tell Me, David
Listen to queer stories — past and present. Produced by journalist David Hunt, a regular contributor to This Way Out: The International LGBTQ Radio Magazine.
Tell Me, David
LGBTQ Coalition Sweeps to Victory in Caribbean Court
The drive for legal equality for LGBTQ people has faced strong headwinds in the Caribbean in recent years. In February 2024, a court in St. Vincent and the Grenadines dismissed a challenge to the nation’s archaic antigay criminal codes, saying the laws were justified on the grounds of public health and morality. And an appeals court in Trinidad and Tabago reinstated that nation’s anti-sodomy laws in March 2025, ruling that the colonial-era statutes were constitutionally untouchable.
But the winds of progress are blowing strong in St. Lucia, where a coalition of community groups just won a stunning court victory, overturning laws that imposed long prison sentences for same-sex intimacy. This was the coalition’s fourth court victory since 2022, when it successfully challenged anti-queer criminal statutes in Antigua and Barbuda, St. Kitts and Nevis, and Barbados. A similar case in Grenada is pending.
David Hunt talked with Kenita Placide, executive director of the Caribbean Alliance for Diversity and Equality (ECADE), the organization behind the legal tempest sweeping across the islands. Produced for This Way Out: The International LGBTQ Radio Magazine.
David Hunt is an Emmy-winning journalist and documentary producer who has reported on America's culture wars since the 1970s. Explore his blog, Tell Me, David.
David Hunt
Saint Lucia’s history is a rich tapestry. So says the island nation’s tourism authority.
But if you dig a little deeper, you’ll find not so much a tapestry as a battleground.
Since it was settled by indigenous groups, including the Arawaks and Caribs 2,000 years ago, the Caribbean island has been contested territory, fought over for centuries by Dutch, French and British colonizers.
And although the island gained independence in 1979, the battle to free itself from oppressive colonial-era laws continues. Thanks to a recent high court decision, St. Lucia joins a growing number of Caribbean countries weaving an inclusive, more equitable future — a true tapestry.
I’m David Hunt. Join me as I explore a rising — and very successful — coalition of community organizations tearing down the pillars of the Caribbean’s colonial past, one island, one lawsuit at time.
A few weeks ago, in July 2025, the high court of St. Lucia, a division of the Eastern Caribbean Supreme Court, struck down two antigay sections of the country’s criminal code. Section 132 imposed a 10-year prison sentence for gross indecency, a crime that applied only to same-sex sexual activity. Section 133 imposed a 10-year sentence for buggery, defined as anal sex between men.
Both laws were holdovers from St. Lucia’s time as a British crown colony. The court struck down both laws, declaring them unconstitutional and “incompatible with modern democratic principles and human dignity.”
The victory in St. Lucia is just the latest in a series of stunning legal triumphs organized and spearheaded by ECADE — the Eastern Caribbean Alliance for Diversity and Equality — an umbrella of 26 community groups across nine island nations, headquartered in St. Lucia. The organization challenged and overturned anti-LGBTQ laws in Antigua & Barbuda in June 2022, St. Kitts & Nevis in August 2022, and Barbados in December 2022. A case in Grenada is pending.
Longtime Caribbean activist Kenita Placide, ECADE’s executive director, spoke with me shortly after the court victory in St. Lucia was announced — good news after a long court battle.
Kenita Placide:
Definitely. Some good news have come in this week. I mean, in spite of everything that's happening across the world, I’m happy to see that St. Lucia has finally delivered the decision we have been awaiting the last year.
David Hunt:
I asked Placide why the organization decided to target antigay, colonial-era statutes in five countries, an ambitious goal by any measure.
Kenita Placide:
In 2015, we actually had a convening of countries of organizations across seven of the islands, small islands, looking at the laws. What if, as activists were to challenge those laws, recognizing that we do not necessarily have a government buy in. One of the things that came about was the need to do the advocacy, the need to, to, to advocate for our population. But more importantly, how do we start changing those laws knowing that they are colonial-era laws, which we inherited, and the countries which gave us those laws since then have gotten rid of them. And so it's now our time to get rid of it.
David Hunt:
Unfortunately, few LGBTQ people in the Caribbean are unaffected by antigay violence — or threats of violence. Placide explains:
Kenita Placide:
Those laws help fuel the stigma, discrimination, and high levels of violence that persons from the LGBT community continue to be persecuted on daily basis in different countries. I will tell you the personal story that had me drive this. I think for me, LGBT persons have always existed. And in some countries through the media, you hear how an LGBT person is killed. But when it happened in my own country, with lots of friends that I knew very closely, and these people were murdered on their perceived or actual orientation, it made me want to do something different. It made me want to see change ... But the one that hits me most is losing this young boy at the age of 17 in 2016. And that brutality where his mom asked me why, and I couldn't answer because there are laws and people think that taking a life of an LGBT person is technically preventing them from committing a crime, but taking the life is also a crime. So, you know, there's this kind of oxymoron of an, of an excuse, and this is some of the driving force behind the, the, the fight for not just equality and justice, but equity to the LGBT community.
David Hunt:
The Eastern Caribbean encompasses an arc of small islands, from the Virgin Islands in the north to Grenada in the south, islands with diverse peoples, cultures, languages, traditions and histories. At a time when the United States is turning away from acknowledging, much less celebrating, diverse cultures, the Caribbean islands proudly embrace their multicultural heritage, the threads of culture, geography and humanity that bind them.
Kenita Placide:
The one thing I tell people, each country is unique to its own self. It's beautiful in its own way. The beaches, the culture, the food. I've come to a place where I don't compare Caribbean countries anymore. That's a fight to happen if you’re among Caribbean people. My advice is always stay away from comparisons.
David Hunt:
ECADE — the Eastern Caribbean Alliance for Diversity and Equality — has been successful in organizing in the region because it empowers local groups, amplifying their voices without coopting their missions. You could say that’s intersectionality done right.
Kenita Placide:
ECADE was formed really to unify voices across the region, to increase our numbers in terms of access to funding, because each island are small and sometimes funders do not necessarily see them as making the impact. So, bringing all those voices together was one of the things that we really championed to do. … Even within our membership, although there are about 14 organizations that are LGBT focused, I like to think that we also look at the holistic wellness of an individual. And so there are also other organizations that focus on other areas like climate change, environmental justice, food justice, health and security. You have organizations that work primarily with women and girls. There's one organization that's actually focused on using culture and drama and arts as a way to social change. So I think it's looking at all the different areas of intervention and advocacy, but the intersectionality of issues that affects an individual beyond their sexual orientation and gender identity. And so ECADE really is one of those think tanks. It's, it's a, it's a network, it's an umbrella, it's a think tank for those small islands.
David Hunt:
You’re listening to This Way Out: The International LGBTQ Radio Magazine. I’m David Hunt, continuing my conversation with Kenita Placide, executive director of ECADE — the Eastern Caribbean Alliance for Diversity and Equality.
In 2015, ECADE convened a coalition of community groups. One of its goals: to challenge anti-LGBTQ laws in five Eastern Caribbean countries. Its track record is remarkable. Of the four cases decided so far by the region’s Supreme Court, all have been successful. The latest, in July 2025, overturned two antigay criminal statutes in St. Lucia.
I asked Placide about the high cost of litigation.
Kenita Placide:
ECADE only took the lead in in bringing people together and bringing ideas together and strategy. But each of the countries actually have organizations that worked with us to do this on the ground. And then we actually reached out to a group called the University of West Indies Rights, an advocacy group. And so one of the things we did was reached out to lawyers who were part of what they call the pro bono grouping. In each of those countries we have been fortunate to actually get lawyers who did those cases pro bono.
The expenses really came about with the planning, the filing, and, you know, some of the support needed for the education and sensitization. The research, particularly on the attitudes towards LGBT persons and some of our security plans, these things were all necessary to think about the safety of not just the claimants, but also of the lawyers involving those cases.
So really want to say, you know, a huge thank you to all the organizations on the ground trusting us to do this. Some of the international organizations like HDT, Human Dignity Trust, the Caribbean Vulnerable Coalition, the HIV AIDS Legal Network, all of those organizations were able to do different aspects in researching law unpacking the cases. And this is why when we look at the varied number of stakeholders, I think it is definitely showing in the strategy that has been employed.
David Hunt:
While the legal landscape is changing for the better in the Caribbean, the work of building a welcoming, inclusive and equitable society will likely take generations. It’s worth the effort, says Placide.
Kenita Placide:
I think the experience of existing in a community that do not understand or do not accept LGBT persons is a difficult one. It's a difficult road. I think when we look at maybe a decade ago in the Caribbean, your rite of passage was basically through religion. You were brought to church and you're told this is Adam and Eve and this is how things supposed to be. And then when you start feeling different, there's a lot of questions. Why am I different to my sisters? Why am I different to my brother? And so I think that especially where there's not necessarily services or counseling or processes that allow one to just be with themself, you actually have to try to navigate what you are feeling and what you think the world said it was through a very restrictive, more often than not, internal process. And this is where some of the difficulties of anxiety and stressfulness is. And when other folks get to know and they, and they, they, they bully you and so on and so forth, it escalates. I want to be able to see young people raised in a country where if they are questioning, they do not need to hide.
And the one thing I would have to say, my last message would probably be that we have gotten the laws changed. We are getting legislation, to more positive legislation. It does not mean the hearts and minds of the people have changed. Cultural and social change takes much longer. And so there's still a lot of work to be done.
David Hunt:
I’d like to thank Kenita Placide for speaking with me for this program. Placide is executive director of the Eastern Caribbean Alliance for Diversity and Equality. Find the organization online at ecequality.org. For This Way Out, I’m David Hunt.
