An appeals court in Trinidad and Tobago has recriminalised homosexuality in the country, which an LGBTQ+ activist says has “put a target on LGBTQIA+ people”.
LGBTQ+ activist Jason Jones, who currently resides in the UK, challenged Sections 13 and 16 of the Sexual Offenses Act in the country. The British Colonial-era law criminalises gay sex between consenting adults.
In 2018, High Court Justice Devindra Rampersad found the sections were unconstitutional. Rampersad ruled in April 2018 that the law was unconstitutional, and expressed intent to strike down Section 13, which punished “sexual intercourse per anum”—also referred to as “buggery”—between men or a heterosexual couple with up to 25 years in prison.
Rampersad also wanted to eliminate the Section 16 law, which banned “acts of serious indecency,” effectively criminalising any kind of sexual intercourse not between a man and a woman. This law carried a punishment of five years in jail.
The court’s final decision amended the law with the effect of decriminalising consensual sex between adults, regardless of their gender, if they are at least 16 years old, local media reported at the time.
However, the country has since appealed Rampersad’s ruling.
Court of Appeal Justices Nolan Bereaux and Charmaine Pemberton overturned the ruling on 25 March 2025. The act of gay sex now carries a term of imprisonment of up to five years, as per local outlet Trinidad Daily Express.
Bereaux and Pemberton found that sections 13 and 16 were saved law, meaning they must stay on the statute books. However, Justice Vasheist Kokaram found otherwise and believed the State’s appeal should have been dismissed.
Jones wrote in a statement: “As an LGBTQ+ citizen of Trinidad and Tobago, this regressive judgment has ripped up my contract as a citizen of T&T and again makes me an unapprehended criminal in the eyes of the law.
“The TT Court of Appeal has effectively put a target on the back of LGBTQIA+ people and made us lower-class citizens in our own country.”
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