Sunday Observer: Gay man blames peers

— Says many gay murders are committed by homosexuals

BY DONNA HUSSEY-WHYTE
Sunday Observer: hussyd@jamaicaobserver.com

Many may argue that the gay community is falsely accused of excessive violence against its own members, but the horrible wounds on Keron Brown's body tell a different story.
Keron Brown has been crippled as a result of an alleged attack by his lover and his lovers friends recently.

Brown, a homosexual, who has been the object of three brutal attacks, told the Sunday Observer that those who deny that violence is strong in the gay community are nothing more than hypocrites.

"Many of the murders that are committed against gay persons are by their peers. And anybody who wishes to deny this is a hypocrite! I am in it, so I know," said Brown.

As the person playing the female role in his relationships, Brown has on three occasions come close to the point of death after threatening to walk out.

"They (partners) would rather see you dead than let someone else have you," he said. "Gay persons are obsessed, they don't love," he added.

"One of the problem is that they can't trust. I think gay people are very possessive. They are up with themselves and they have no control. I had a partner for five years, but there was this level of mistrust," Brown explained. "I felt my partner wasn't a faithful person. It hurt if you are always there for someone and they are not there for you."

In May 2007, Brown said he had an argument with his lover in which he told him he would be leaving the union. This caused great bitterness, and while he cannot prove it, he felt it was this lover who instigated the slicing of his stomach by 'straight' men.

In January 2008, he was again attacked and doused with acid by this same jealous lover, with whom he had reunited. His face, back and arms are scarred.

"I wanted him out of my life," Brown said. "He was disrespectful. I was told by some spiritual people that I was under his spell and I believed it. He fled with his lover and a large sum of my money. He left for one year and four months and then he came back. I guess the money ran out and he wanted more."

In October last year, Brown once again found himself at the bitter end of the stick with another lover with whom he had been involved for five years. He was attacked by this partner and four of his friends and pushed two stories down from a three-storey apartment building. He suffered severe spinal injuries and doctors have diagnosed that he might never walk again.

In fact, Brown, 25, is now confined to a wheelchair and his face disfigured by the acid. A sharp contrast to that time four years ago when he strolled into the offices of the Observer, his handsome features and extraordinarily cute face drawing the attention of many females.

But despite these permanent scars and injuries, Brown, whose introduction to the gay lifestyle happened when he was eight years old, remains pleasant and hopeful.

"Six months ago I would have been bitter," he said, adding that he even contemplated hiring hit men to avenge him. "But I am aging and I am spiritual so I am no longer bitter. I have forgiven them (the attackers). I have no reason to take action. I believe the good Lord is about to do something."

"We have to remember this is a homophobic and a Christian society. And so we can't flaunt certain things."

He said changing his lifestyle is not as easy as many would want to believe and likened it to a stronghold, one from which it is hard to break away.

"Gay lifestyle is a stronghold," he said. "And when you have a stronghold, you are going to need a lot to transform you."

Brown said he was blind-folded and raped by a 15-year-old boy, while at a boys' home.

"I grew up in a boys' home setting. I did not know my father, and my mother abandoned me at a market when I was seven," he explained, adding that he had no ill feelings towards his mother.

"She left me at a pastry shop in Mandeville and just walked away," Brown told the Sunday Observer. "She was charged with child abandonment and I was sent to St John's Bosco Boys home in Manchester.

He spoke of the physical abuse at a number of these institutions — he passed through 10 of them — by persons whose responsibility it was to taking care of them. It was so bad, he said, that he ended up running away from a number of them. He mentioned incidents in which he was punched in the nose, beaten with hose and electric wire and at one time, was dragged along a corridor by a superintendent of one home.

The well-spoken Brown who attended schools in Kingston and Manchester, said that at one point while in primary school, he was not only physically abused by a major in charge, but prevented from attending school.

At the age of 17, he left Manchester for Kingston and soon after his arrival, he developed a love affair with aanother man.

Brown confesses to never having been with a woman, though his childhood dream was to have a wife and children.

"I used to associate with a lot of closet type people," Brown said. "But I soon got into a more violent type gay community."

But life hasn't been all bad for Brown. He met a partner who lived overseas and who ensured that he furthered his education, established two businesses and had enough money to see his way through. As a result of that relationaship, Brown said he has travelled to over 20 different countries on vacation.

"I look at a lot of gay people who died as a result and I just have to thank God that I am still alive," he said.