All across the globe, gender revolutions are happening. And it’s not just in National Geographic’s January 2017 Gender Revolution issue. From the Women’s March in Washington D.C. (and others like it around the world) to the #saytheirname movement in Jamaica and the wider Caribbean, the concept of gender and sexual autonomy have become the prescient buzzwords of the new year.

So many changes are taking place in the landscape of gender – now we’re talking about it openly, for one. Compare the evolution of gender into terms like ‘non-binary’, against the potential backpedaling of the US government away from reproductive autonomy. What a time to be alive.

Of course, negative reactions are to be expected. When Loop JA posted their article on Trina, a Jamaican trans woman featured in the National Geographic issue, almost every comment disparaged the young woman – calling her ‘it’, saying she should have died in one of the many attacks on her life. And somehow in the same breath, being angry that she ‘chose’ to portray Jamaica as way more violently homophobic than it actually is.

It’s true that not all Jamaican gays/trans-folks/bisexuals experience life the same way. Jaevion Nelson (long time human rights activist) points out that by focusing on the most brutal stories we forget about the voices who are not so downtrodden, but equally important. There is no one way to be gay/trans/non-binary and Nat Geo should have considered that in their piece, instead of perpetuating the horror crusade that has become de rigueur in discussions about Jamaican homophobia.

This is not to say that there aren’t things about Jamaica that are downright horrifying. Take the recent travesty involving a Moravian pastor caught in a “compromising position” with a 15 year old girl. (Which is being handled terribly by the media, might I add).

The Moravian church has a lot to answer for, but the culture of silence isn’t only perpetuated by church-goers and elders. The silencing of young girls is so entrenched in our society that it seems impossible to break.

The silence of mothers should not be passed to their daughters. Daughters do not need to inherit the silence of their mothers.
–Ijeoma Umebinyo

Organisations like We Change JA and the Women’s Resource and Outreach Centre (along with dozens of human rights activists) are writing letters and editorials that demand an end to the secrecy. The #saytheirnames movement is growing.

But human rights movements always gather momentum really well only to fizzle out as the public loses interest. Right now everyone is interested in what WROC and the activists have to say but in another nine days those groups will be behind the scenes again, unobtrusively working to change the way our society thinks.

What great catalyst will it take to shake Jamaicans out of their indifference? When will one million women march together for gender equality, sexual autonomy, reproductive rights? Is it to be a slow, inevitable downward spiral, despite the desperate efforts of an enlightened few?

Will we wake up in time to save ourselves?