The Queer Caribbean Liberation Collective is a coalition of partners, activists, and community members that march to amplify Caribbean LGBTQ+ representation and culture while demanding action, accountability, and justice for Guyanese Trans Lives. 

The Carnival Road has always been a place of resistance, centering a history of fighting for freedom and celebrating Caribbean resilience. Tiffany Jade Munroe, the Trans Justice Coordinator of Caribbean Equality Project, and Trans activist Twinkle A. Paul lead the Queer Caribbean Liberation Collective contingent in the annual West Indian Day Parade. The two Guyanese trans women, who are asylum seekers, migrated to New York City for safety and survival- fearing the fate of their fellow murdered Trans Guyanese sisters. An epidemic of transphobia has claimed the lives of six transgender women in horrific acts of hate and violence over 12 years in Guyana. To date, the inaction from the People's Progressive Party/Civic (PPP/C) of Guyana, the opposition, and the religious leaders have yet to condemn these senseless and brutal killings of these Guyanese citizens. 

On Saturday, August 3, 2024, Randy Stanislaus, known to her community as Radica, a transgender woman, was murdered at the Mahaica Community Center. Radica's abandoned body was discovered in a pool of blood with multiple stab wounds. Her death came just less than a month after a gunman fatally shot and killed Shawn Simon, a young and vibrant Afro-Guyanese transgender woman, on July 11, 2024. Radica and Simon are not the first cases of murder. In 2013, Wesly Holder was tortured, and her lifeless body was dumped in a dark alley. To date, no one has been held accountable, and her death remains a mystery. In 2014, Jason John, also known as Jada, and Carlyle Sinclair, called Tyra, were murdered with the assistance of workers who were employees of Mekdeci Machinery & Construction Inc. (MMC), a privately owned security company. In 2015, again another Trans sibling, Noel Nephi, was brutally gunned down, execution style similar to Simon. 

The murders of Radica and Simon sent shockwaves throughout Guyana and the LGBTQ+ community, a reminder of the daily struggles for safety and economic stability of trans people while illuminating the archaic post-colonial laws that continue to harm LGBTQ+ Guyanese. Their deaths did not occur in isolation. It is a result of a lack of human rights laws and decades of systemic injustices impacting marginalized LGBTQ+ people in Guyana. All of the murdered trans women were forced into survival sex work due to a lack of employment opportunities, job discrimination, housing inequities, and inaccessible health and gender-affirming care. Like other former British colonies, Guyana inherited archaic colonial laws, religious bigotry, police brutality, and oppressive practices from its colonial rulers. These trans lives and futures were robbed of the possibilities of prosperity due to a deprivation of resources to thrive. The bodies of our trans siblings might have been discarded and abandoned, but they are not disposable. They have loved ones who continue to mourn their lives, uplift their memories and legacies, and fight for accountability and justice- even in the diaspora.