Advancing Partners & Communities Hosts Transgender Luncheon and Health Talk in Guyana

June 27, 2017
Diamond Infinity delegates
Pageant participants, partners, and APC staff participate in a health talk.
Pageant delegates
Pageant participants, Guyana Trans United Monitoring & Evaluation Officer, and APC’s Key Populations Focal Point Officer receive roses of appreciation.

The transgender-focused Diamond Infinity pageant is the first of its kind in Guyana and gives transgender women the opportunity to participate in an event predominately geared towards heterosexual women. Advancing Partners & Communities (APC) grantee, Guyana Trans United, has hosted the pageant for the past three years. Participants in the pageant were treated to a luncheon and discussion session hosted by APC on May 23rd, 2017. Supporting partners of the pageant delegates also attended the luncheon, which offered HIV counselling and testing.

APC’s Key Populations Focal Point Officer facilitated a session to discuss HIV and health, violence against transgender women in Guyana, and the intersection of stigma and discrimination. The session began with a welcome by APC’s Chief of Party and led straight to a screening of the short film, Transgender Women and Work: Tiffany1. After the viewing, APC shared data from the study, Developing and Implementing Gender-Based Violence Screening within Community Organizations2, which reveals that 28.1% of transgender women experience intimate partner violence and 32.7% experience rape.

Participants noted that many transgender women in Guyana experience intimate partner violence, rape, a high burden from the HIV epidemic, and substance overuse. Young transgender women present reported feeling a lack of community and not feeling empowered, which increases their vulnerability. Participants asked APC to consider developing Guyana specific videos that speak to the realities faced by transgender women in Guyana.

1 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vErffvQQnyk

2 A study conducted in August 2014 by the International Center for Research on Women and APC Guyana