Marlon Jam: X-Men saved me as a gay teenager

Contents:

• MARLON JAM: ‘I UNRWENT GAY EXORCISM PENTESTAL CHURCH JAMAI’
• MARLON JAM: X-MEN SAVED ME AS A GAY TEENAGER
• MARLON JAM PRAIS A GAY CEMA CLASSIC
• MAN BOOKER PRIZE WNER MARLON JAM REVEALS HE WAS GIVEN EXORCISM BY JAMAI'S 'EX-GAY' MOVEMENT
• MARLON JAM SAYS HE WAS SPERATE TO ‘DRIVE OUT THE GAY' WH EXORCISM
• MAN BOOKER PRIZE WNER MARLON JAM WAS TORTURED BY ‘EX-GAY’ EXORCISM: VIDEO
• ROXANE GAY AND MARLON JAM EXPLORE HIS AIN MYTH-SPIRED ‘BLACK LEOPARD, RED WOLF’

MARLON JAM: ‘I UNRWENT GAY EXORCISM PENTESTAL CHURCH JAMAI’

Jamain novelist Marlon Jam, wner of the Man Booker Prize 2015, wanted to alter his sexualy “more than anythg” his youth and unrwent a gellg relig rual to try to “drive out the gay”, he is to expla a rad terview on was only when the wrer eventually turned away om formal relign and left the Caribbean that he was able to fully accept his homosexualy and even wre about . As Dert Island Discs’ latt staway on BBC Rad 4, Jam tails the extreme evangelil exorcism, or “gay cure”, he endured at a Pentestal church wrer, who earned lerary fame wh his third novel A Brief History Of Seven Killgs, had thrown himself to relign to f wh Jamain society and tells Lren Laverne he did not realise he was gay.

” Quick rep: When Robert Eubanks, a whe man of Harris, Texas, lled the police on his iend John Geds Lawrence Jr., a whe, gay fifty five- year-old medil technologist, and mutual iend Tyron Garner (black), was bee he noticed that Lawrence and his on‑and-off aga lover had h off way too well, and while he went out to get soda, he jealoly surmised that they were gettg on. You don’t have to be gay to see the ripple effect of Lawrence.

Texas paved the way for gay marriage and, wh , curly enough, a wave of gay men who would have disapproved of both Lawrence and Garner. He found this judgment le wh the famo homosexual agenda, an abstract ncept that seemed spng om a fake document, like a Protols of the Elrs of faggotry. He laid out as “the agenda promoted by some homosexual activists directed at elimatg the moral opprobrium that has tradnally attached to homosexual nduct.

MARLON JAM: X-MEN SAVED ME AS A GAY TEENAGER

” This is important bee even the wake of gay marriage, and homosexuals votg for Tmp, even world-famo gay stars are still beg bashed and beaten, and many other world-famo people have been chg back to that time when they uld still get away wh beg publicly homophobic. Speakg of civil rights, the Supreme Court rolled back on protectns the very same week approved gay marriage.

Bakers are takg to the urts for the right to not bake k for same-sex weddgs, funeral directors are refg gay rps, and for an admistratn that me wh the help of so many homo-lns, the rollback agast protectns of LGBQ and, particular, trans people has been alarmg. I left Jamai to save my life, but ntrary to the nnotatn immediately raised by uplg “Jamai” and “gay” the same sentence, I was only fleeg myself—or, rather, a versn of myself tent on killg me.

MARLON JAM PRAIS A GAY CEMA CLASSIC

This versn of myself uldn’t image a place where I uld hold another man’s hand for more than four sends, uld never even image admtg to beg gay the first place.

MAN BOOKER PRIZE WNER MARLON JAM REVEALS HE WAS GIVEN EXORCISM BY JAMAI'S 'EX-GAY' MOVEMENT

No gay person nng to Ameri fools himself to expectg a untry cked out rabow lors or that you n’t be gay-bashed New York Cy. Note that those three words are all abstractns, and gay Jamains younger than me are far more terted pursug them their own untry.

I was one of the nerds and the gay kids – and the ol kids gave me hell. They thought he was gay, and that he worshipped the vil or somethg, both of which were perfectly fe by me. "When asked earlier this year if intifi wh the gay character his novel, the murro, lerature-quotg gangster Weeper, he told a Telegraph reporter:"I don't know if any of me found s way to that.

But was very important to me that there were gay characters the book - to reflect the gayns and hypocrisy Jamai.

MARLON JAM SAYS HE WAS SPERATE TO ‘DRIVE OUT THE GAY' WH EXORCISM

When you grow up a homophobic untry, you're stg on a timebomb. The Caribbean natn's homophobia is notor, and while Jam was able to fd a way to get out, many more are not as fortunate. I had never set foot a gay bar whout paranoia phg me back out.

Durg Gay Pri week, Alex and John-John dragged me to one lled Camp, which was rated wh dis balls and drawgs of octop tentacl. Jam, who was raised Jamai but now liv the Uned Stat, me out as gay a piece for The Tim Magaze. Jam’s novel, which revolv around an assassatn attempt on the reggae star Bob Marley, expos some of the homophobia for which Jamai and other parts of the Caribbean have bee known.

This hatred is rooted the legacy of the lonial laws of the Brish Caribbean, which crimalized sodomy, and rerced by the powerful fluence of anti-gay a queer transgenr woman om another Caribbean island, the Commonwealth of Domi, I found that Mr. In much of the Caribbean, beg transgenr is simply nflated wh beg gay; I was terrified of beg ostracized at bt and physilly asslted at worst. Rad hosts exprsed “regret” that he was queer, while others reportedly bshed off his beg gay as a edorial the Jamai Observer asked if was necsary for Jamains to be exile to wre well, yet, credibly, failed to exame the reason for Mr.

MAN BOOKER PRIZE WNER MARLON JAM WAS TORTURED BY ‘EX-GAY’ EXORCISM: VIDEO

Jam’s exile: his fear of what would happen if he were to live openly as a gay man.

Jam, who are queer — eher the ternal exile of livg a lie at home to avoid ostracism or asslt, or the external exile of fleeg home orr to fally be Oroz, a gay Belizean who mounted the first legal challenge to an anti-sodomy law the Caribbean, is practilly exiled his own home. He leav his hoe only for brief trips, which he fac anti-gay slurs om passers-by, and has to fortify his home wh six locks every time he the hoe of the Jamain activist and wrer Dadland Maye was burned down, and he was attacked by men wh guns, Mr. Jam’s novel through the character of Weeper: A gay gangster om Jamai who pretends at first to be heterosexual, Weeper mak peace wh his beg queer only when he travels to Caribbean, to be sure, is not uniformly hostile to .

You’d thk wh the rise of Donald Tmp the US, Mare Le Pen France, the newly energized Neo-Nazi and KKK movements, and wh people om all over the world (but particularly Europe) sudnly embolned to be public wh their racism, anti-Semism, sexism, homophobia, transphobia, and xenophobia, that now would be the perfect time to raise the banner high for diversy.

ROXANE GAY AND MARLON JAM EXPLORE HIS AIN MYTH-SPIRED ‘BLACK LEOPARD, RED WOLF’

We have diversy panels and ve wrers of lor, perhaps Roxane Gay (who has long lled out the l tablishment on this hab, and who spired me to wre this piece), or Junot Diaz, or an Indigeno Amerin and/or Atralian so as to not ignore origal peopl. We ve a gay man or woman, wh extra bon pots if the homosexual is a person of lor. Is such a discsn legimate whout the black, or brown or gay voice, spe diversy beg a whe problem?