Maurice Tomlinson
| Maurice Tomlinson | |
|---|---|
.jpeg) |
|
| Born |
9 April 1971 Montego Bay, St. James, Jamaica |
| Residence | Toronto, Canada |
| Nationality | Jamaican |
| Alma mater | The University of the West Indies, The University of Calgary, The University of Turin |
| Years active | 2003–present |
Maurice Tomlinson (born 1971) is a Jamaican Attorney-at-Law and law lecturer. He has been a leading Gay Rights and HIV activist in the Caribbean for over 20 years and is one of the only Jamaican LGBTI human rights advocates to challenge the country's 1864 British colonially imposed anti gay Sodomy Law (known as the Buggery Law). This law predominantly affects men who have sex with men (MSM) and carries a jail sentence of up to ten years imprisonment with hard labour.
Maurice was born on 9 April 1971 in Montego Bay, St, James, Jamaica to George Cornel Tomlinson and Carmen Victoria Tomlinson (née Campbell). He has two brothers, Kurt and Rhoan.Maurice’s education includes studies at The University of the West Indies (2003), Norman Manley Law School in Jamaica (2005) and the University of Turin Law School in Italy (2006) and Mona School of Business (2007).
After graduation in 1993 Maurice returned to Air Jamaica and started his then "dream" job as a flight attendant. However, he left the airline after only 6 months when his boss advised him to "stand in front of a mirror, try to act more macho and deepen his voice" because passengers had complained that he was gay. A
Maurice Tomlinson later went to work for a mortgage company. It was while pursuing a law degree that Maurice became interested in international human rights work. His studies in law also gave him an interest in Human Rights, especially for LGBTI people, and taught him that it was possible to change discriminatory laws and practices.
In 2006 he started working as a corporate lawyer and left after a year and a half to become the project manager in the Office of the Principal of the University of West Indies. In this post, Maurice was responsible for the establishment of the UWI’s Western Jamaica Campus in his hometown of Montego Bay. In 2009, Maurice began teaching human rights and discrimination law at the University of Technology, Jamaica and also became Legal Advisor, Marginalized Groups for the international NGO, AIDS-Free World.
Maurice was married to his best female friend in 1999 in an attempt to "cure" his homosexuality. The couple divorced 4 years later and they have one son who now lives with his mother. In 2011 Tomlinson married his partner Tom Decker in Canada. Tom was the LGBT liaison officer for the Toronto Police Service and he and Maurice met in 2010 at an International Lesbian and Gay Association (ILGA) World Conference. Their activism is central to their marriage, although Maurice and had to flee Jamaica temporarily in 2012 when a Jamaican newspaper carried an unauthorized photograph of their wedding, leading to several death threats against Maurice. He now teaches Canadian Human Rights and other law courses at the University of Ontario Institute of Technology in Oshawa, Canada and is also a Senior Policy Analyst for the Canadian HIV/AIDS Legal Network, where he focuses on challenging homophobia and HIV in the Caribbean.
...
Wikipedia