CARIMAC Times 2016: The JREAM Edition Journalists Reviving Awareness of what Matters | Page 107

Going to an all girls’ high school only made
Wanliss more aware of his identity. He recalled
flirting with a girl, only to be treated with shock
and disgust in return. She reminded him that he
was a girl, but the description felt alien to him.

From high school to homelessness

“I just thought I was a different kind of boy,”
he said.

Although Wanliss had learned to deal with the
bullying from his schoolmates, tension still
clouded his life at home. During a martial arts
sparring match with his father, things became
too aggressive, to the point that Wanliss said
he felt he was being abused.

Wanliss said students bullied him for being quiet,
untidy, and most of all, for being masculine.
He never shared his grievances with his family,
and only confided in one friend, who did not
think he was serious about being transgender.

“When I had the altercation with my father, I
thought it was [due to] my sexuality, and his
perceived idea of my sexuality… [But] in his
mind he just thought he was teaching me a
lesson.”

“I just never felt this strong urge [that] I need
to talk to people about it, because if people
don’t understand lesbian and gay issues, how
are they gonna understand transsexual issues
or transgender issues? They’re not gonna
understand that concept.”
Now, he no longer dwells on his past, and for
him high school has become a blur of bad
memories he would rather forget.
“I always describe that as five years of prison…
In prison, you go through a routine: you wake
up, you go in and out, in the yard, you eat food…
It was just a robotic motion. I didn’t leave with
any massive form of education, I didn’t leave
with any life-altering experience …” he said.
By the time he left high school, however, he did
leave with a renewed outlook on life.
“Once I started to laugh at myself and give myself
jokes, it didn’t hurt as much what people said.
Ever since then, it’s just more difficult for
people to bully me,” he said.

For Wanliss, it was the last straw.
That night he left his home, but had nowhere to
go but to wander the streets and dark alleyways
of downtown Montego Bay. Surrounded by
pitch darkness, fear gripped him.
“I didn’t even sleep, because I was sh*t scared
to sleep in Jamaica … It was scary in the sense
that I didn’t know what was going to happen
next. I didn’t know where I was going to go.”
Wanliss spent one night on the streets of Jamaica
before he found refuge in a former classmate’s
home. He stayed for up to two months, but it
was anything but comfortable.
“It was a very dirty house, but if you cotching
[staying with a friend], what can you complain
about?” he said.
At the time, Wanliss worked at a resort, getting
low pay, and desperately trying to find a way
to improve his circumstances. Although he

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