The IDENTITY Project

Human Rights Defender, London, UK

JASON JONES

Jason Jones is an LGBTQ+ human rights defender originally from Trinidad & Tobago and has lived and worked in Britain for over 30 years. He refers to himself as being β€œTringlish” and as a person of colour.

His activism in LGBTQ+ human rights spans 3 decades beginning as a student newly arrived to London, marching in the anti-Section 28 marches of 1988.

In 1996 he was on the board of the Stonewall Immigration Group which won the right of abode in the UK for the overseas partner of an LGBTQ+ UK citizen

On April 12 2018, he won a landmark legal challenge at the High Court of Trinidad and Tobago which decriminalised adult consensual same sex intimacy. This win guarantees freedom for nearly 100,000 Caribbean LGBT people and was cited in the recent decriminalisation victory in India meaning he has helped change the laws in two countries to better the lives of LGBTQ+ people! His historic case will be heard at the Privy Council in London to answer an appeal of his landmark victory from the Attorney General of T&T. This will be the first time in history that the Privy Council will hear an LGBTQ+ decriminalisation case and his victory there will support decriminalisation in at least 10 other countries!

What does your identity mean to you?

Being Bi-Racial, and Bi-National, being born in the 60’s when social upheaval was happening for people of colour and/or LGBTQ+, my identity has been a major part of my lived experience and how I live and work, has always been coloured by these contrasting identities that challenged the status quo at the time. My mere EXISTENCE was revolutionary! And I continue to challenge injustice and prejudice wherever and whenever I see it.

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