LGBTQ people in Belize are particularly vulnerable to physical and non-physical violence, both from non-state and state actors. All physical (and some non-physical) forms of such violence are criminalised, but victims face multiple barriers to redress. Some non-physical forms are rather state-sanctioned and lawful. Most violence is thought to be driven by anti-LGBTQ prejudice (homophobia, biphobia, transphobia), which in turn is thought to be mainly stoked by the Christian right, Christian fundamentalism, or toxic masculinity. Such violence is deemed significantly detrimental to the health and welfare of over 22,000 LGBTQ individuals (including families with children) in the country.
Violence against LGBTQ people may not have been so widespread in precolonial days, as buccaneers-turned-Baymen are thought to have been relatively liberal towards same-sex intimacy (ostensibly due to the scarcity of women back then). Early Maya and Creole Baymen may have been similarly tolerant (ostensibly due to possibly liberal Mesoamerican and West African customs prior to European contact). The establishment of Christian parishes in 1776 (Anglican, then others), replacement of Baymen's custom with British common law in 1840, and passing of the Criminal Code Act 1888 would have likely quashed any such tolerance by the late 19th century by formally criminalising non-heteronormative acts and expressions. This state of lawful intolerance of and violence towards LGBTQ Belizeans is thought to have remained unchallenged through the 20th and into the 21st century.
The 2000s saw the country's earliest efforts to curb anti-LGBTQ violence, beginning with the founding of UNIBAM in 2006. Notable amongst these have been the 2013 gender policy, public pride celebrations since 2015, the successful UNIBAM case in 2016, Belize's acceptance of most LGBTQ-related UN UPR recommendations in 2018, and the 2020 Equal Opportunities Bill.
Overt acts of violence against LGBTQ people by private citizens have been illegal since Belize's founding (as with overtly violent acts against any person), and seem to be frowned upon across the West Indies today (2020s). Such offences are nonetheless not unheard of, with LGBTQ Belizeans being subjected to physical or sexual assaults, and even murders. For instance, UNIBAM recorded "over 80 murders of LGBT persons" in 1995âÂÂ2021. LGBTQ Belizeans are further subject to not-so-overt acts of violence, including verbal harassment, emotional abuse, deprivation of services (housing, schooling, employment, healthcare), and exclusion from spaces (family, social, religious, business). Altogether, a 2022 ReportOUT (UK charity) poll found 88 percent of LGBTQ Belizeans had experienced some form of violence, mostly verbal abuse (30 percent), online abuse (24), threats of violence (20), and violent physical or sexual assaults (11 percent). Similarly, CVC (Jamaican charity) recorded 50 physical and non-physical violent incidents against LGBTQ people in Belize in 2018âÂÂ2022 (mostly gender-based violence, physical abuse, verbal abuse, emotional abuse, in descending order), most of which occurred in the community or workplace, with victims overwhelmingly opting to forego official action against perpetrators. This compared to 189 such incidents recorded by CVC for 2013âÂÂ2018 (mostly physical violence, verbal harassment, in descending order).
State violence against LGBTQ citizens takes both physical (police brutality) and non-physical (police harassment; abuse of authority; deprivation of rights, liberties, services) forms. For instance, eight percent of LGBTQ Belizeans reported having experienced police brutality in a 2022 poll, while a further thirteen percent reported having been blackmailed by police, and eight percent having been harassed or harmed by other state actors (armed forces, social services). Similarly, though Section 53 of the Criminal Code Act 1981 ostensibly applied to "every person who has carnal intercourse against the order of nature", the Supreme Court found in 2016 that the Crown had used it to disproportionately target LGBTQ people. As of 2024, various of the rights, liberties, and services afforded to non-LGBTQ citizens are lawfully denied to their LGBTQ peers.
Prejudice against LGBTQ people is widely deemed the primary cause of violence against them. Belizean society today (2020s) still presents relatively widespread levels of prejudice towards their LGBTQ members. Since the 2000s, the country has consistently scored in the 4âÂÂ5 range (representing relatively middling acceptance of LGBTQ people) in the Global Acceptance Index (a standardised aggregate of global polls on attitudes towards LGBTQ people) by the Williams Institute. A 2022 ReportOUT (UK charity) poll found only 16 percent of LGBTQ Belizeans were comfortable being openly themselves amongst their religious community, compared to with healthcare staff (37 percent), employers (45), family (69), and close friends (89 percent). On the upside, some surveys indicate diminishing prejudice. For instance, a 2023 LAPOP poll found only 53 percent of Belizeans strongly disapproved of gay marriage (down from highs of 83 and 82 percent in 2012 and 2014, respectively), while only 37 percent strongly disapproved of gay candidates for office (down from highs of 59 and 67 percent in 2012 and 2014, respectively). Early 2010s polls found similarly heightened levels of anti-LGBTQ sentiment as the early LAPOP surveys. A 2013 CADRES (Barbadian company) poll found 25 and 14 percent of Belizean men and women (respectively) hated gay people (when asked whether they "accept, tolerate or hate homosexuals", these respondents selected hate), while 47 and 28 percent of them (men and women respectively) would not socialise with gay people. Similarly, a 2012 CARICOM poll found 81 percent of West Indian (including Belizean) teens "indicated that homosexuality was looked upon negatively by them".
Theories on what drives anti-LGBTQ prejudice in Belize vary. For West Indian (including Belizean) men, Rosina Wiltshire (of the aforementioned 2012 CARICOM poll) suggested their significantly greater (than women's) prejudice might stem from their (strongly socially-reinforced) fear of being ridiculed as sissies, and thus of being deemed not real men. Authors of the 2013 CADRES study drew similar conclusions from their comparable findings. A similar mechanism (machismo) has been suggested for Mestizo men. More generally though (for Belizean men and women), some studies have suggested that the Crown (via discriminatory laws, policies, practices) and influential personalities and institutions in politics, media, and culture (via rhetoric) both sanction and foster such prejudice. Further contributing factors may include HIV/AIDS stigma, classism, ignorance or misunderstanding of LGBTQ topics. Nevertheless, the most often cited driver of anti-LGBTQ prejudice is religious (specifically Christian right or fundamentalist) intolerance or zealotry.
Further causes of violence against LGBTQ people may include domestic or intimate partner violence.
Violence against LGBTQ people is deemed detrimental to their mental and physical health, safety of person, and financial security. These negative outcomes are most acute amongst the most vulnerable classes within the LGBTQ community, like transgender people, HIV/AIDS patients, detainees.
A number of measures (both official and unofficial) have been taken in an effort to curb said violence. Notable examples include the work of various LGBTQ charities (public awareness, political advocacy, support services), that of several allied organisations (women's, HIV/AIDS, human rights), and even that of official bodies (several). As of 2022 though, a majority (57 percent) of LGBTQ Belizeans did not agree that there were enough support services available to them, with a further one in five reporting they had support network (not even informal, like friends or family).
In popular culture, this sort of violence first gained visibility via news coverage of the late 2010 filing of the UNIBAM case, followed by heated debate for and against LGBTQ rights in 2011. In scholarship, violence against LGBTQ Belizeans remains mostly within the purview of grey literature (like NGO reports).