CARIMAC Times 2016: The JREAM Edition Journalists Reviving Awareness of what Matters | Page 94

Growing up, Burton said she did not know the words gay, transgender or bisexual, or the depths of their meaning. The 2014 Gleaner-commissioned Bill Johnson poll revealed that, 72 per cent of Jamaicans do not support equal rights for transgender people. The figures for other LGBTQ people were just as jarring; 68 per cent did not support equal rights for gay men, and 65 per cent did not support equal rights for lesbians. “I knew within myself, I knew I was a woman. I am a woman,” Burton said, “I like to say woman, because people will say, since you’re transgender, you’re not yet a woman. So even if you go and do your sexual reassignment surgery, get a vagina, you’re still not a woman because you’re not born with it. So I don’t like to be called transgender.” Burton said she had an image of who she wanted to be when she was young, and how she wanted to be seen. She adorned herself with her sister’s clothes and her mother’s heels, even sported her mother’s slippers to the shop. Her parents acceded to their child’s ‘quirks’, but the scrutiny of other parents became too strong. They said, “Jermaine is not behaving the way society dictates a man should behave.” In time, the streets grew into a battlefield, where her neighbours hurled insults and nicknames. At home and at Church, her mother’s “prayer warriors,” as Burton called them, descended with a storm of prayers in the hope to “save” Burton from her “demons”. While the warriors raged, a battle raged within Burton as well — doubts arose from her religious upbringing and society’s expectations. 90 Transgender pride flag