On 5 July, 2022, the Eastern Caribbean Supreme Court’s High Court of Justice (“High Court”) decriminalized consensual same-sex sexual activity between adults in a landmark decision . This Court has jurisdiction over nine states: Antigua and Barbuda, Dominica, Grenada, St. Kitts-Nevis, St. Lucia, St. Vincent, the Grenadines, Anguilla, the British Virgin Islands, and Montserrat. Antigua and Barbuda, however, continues to discriminate against lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, queer, and other sexual and gender minorities (“LGBTQ+”) through its failure to enact legislation to protect the rights of such individuals, including the legalization of same-sex marriage; the ability for an individual to change their gender marker; and the protection against discrimination on the basis of real or perceived sexual orientation, gender identity, and gender expression. Instead of implementing laws and policies policies to protect members of the LGBTQ+ community, the Government has stated that it will not take any active steps to enact protections.

Antigua and Barbuda also fails to protect members of the LGBTQ+ community from violence by both State and non-State actors.

In this report we use the acronym LGBTQ+ to refer to individuals who self-identify as lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender and/or queer. These terms necessarily do not include everyone who may experience violations of their human rights on the basis of their real or perceived sexual orientation, gender identity, and gender expression (SOGIE), which is why we also include a “+” with the acronym. Any use of a modified acronym is intentional in that we are speaking only about certain members of the LGBTQ+ population. According to reports, many Antiguans and Barbudians do not understand the term “intersex” and conflate it with transgender identities and/or sexual orientation. 4 Thus, while the authors found no information that pertains to intersex individuals, it is possible that some information on transgender people applies to both transgender and intersex individuals.