Colonial Law, Sexual Regulation, and the Historical Roots of Anti-LGBT Frameworks in Guyana

Abstract Book of the 5th International Conference on LGBT studies

Year: 2026

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Colonial Law, Sexual Regulation, and the Historical Roots of Anti-LGBT Frameworks in Guyana

Shammane Joseph Jackson

ABSTRACT:

This paper is looking at how today’s anti-LGBT laws in Guyana are still rooted in the country’s colonial past. My research, which is still in its infancy, has focused on the colonial ordinances, parliamentary debates, minutes of the Court of Policy, government correspondence, colonial newspaper articles, and people’s testimonials to trace these connections. What I’ve found so far indicates that the “buggery laws” of Guyana weren’t homegrown traditions; they were imposed by colonial authorities. These laws are a reflection of British morals, Christian missionary influences, mixed with colonial anxieties about the African race, labour, and social order.
It was because of these anxieties that the “buggery laws”, vagrancy laws, and so-called “gross indecency” provisions were implemented to ensure that freed men, indentured labourers, and African urban workers “did not return to barbarism”. The British colonials were not the only ones who did not understand that sexual non-conformity is a personal issue; they treated it as a threat to their authority and to keeping social order. Further, for decades, these laws remained intact, largely unchanged, Guyana even after it gained independence in 1966, and these laws still have an effect on how sexuality is viewed legally today in Guyana. Even though in 2018, the Guyana court ruled that the law criminalising ‘cross-dressing‘ was unconstitutional and struck it down. That is Section 153 (1) (xlvii), which jailed men for wearing “female attire” or a woman for wearing male attire in public, for “any improper purpose”. There are so many more laws to get rid of.
It is my hope that this research on the “buggery laws” of Guyana can dispel the belief that anti-LGBT laws are “just part of local culture” and instead shows that their roots were part of the British colonial policy.

Keywords: Traditions; African; Policy; Unconstitutional; Authority