In Jamaica, where religion shapes moral order and where violence against LGBTQ+ people is pervasive, living openly as a transgender person can pose a deadly risk.
For Terry-Kay Walker, 38, that life-or-death moment came to a head one night when she was coming home from a fashion show in New Kingston.
“Me and my best friend were walking down the road, and a man stopped us,” she told CityNews.
Before Walker could make sense of the situation, she and her friend took off running. Then came the sound of gunshots.
“I heard a shot being fired, but I didn’t feel it because it happened so fast,” she explained. “Then my friend told me that I was bleeding. And that’s when I noticed that I was shot in the leg.”
Walker claims she was targeted that night because of her gender identity and says she has faced persistent violence and discrimination in her home country that has forced her to live on the streets for prolonged periods of time and perform sex work.
After years of unstable and abusive living situations, she reached out to an advocacy group in Toronto called Rainbow Railroad, which helps LGBTQ+ people around the world who are facing displacement, state-enabled persecution, and violence in their home country. The group says it received a record-breaking number of requests for help last year, fuelled by compounding global crises.
“The volume of requests for help that we are receiving is concerning,” Devon Matthews, Chief Programs Officer at Rainbow Railroad, tells CityNews. “It’s a 51 per cent increase from 2024 year over year, and it’s the highest in the organization’s 20-year history.”
According to a report released on June 20, which marks World Refugee Day, the organization claims to have received more than 20,000 requests for help in 2025 from individuals in countries spanning from the United States to Uganda.
“We are seeing flare-ups in anti-LGBTQ+ sentiment, like legislation recently passed in Uganda, which allows for criminal charges for people who support LGBTQI people or advocate on their behalf,” Matthews explains. “But we sometimes forget that LGBTQI people are everywhere in every crisis, no matter what’s happening in the world.”
“Consistent global pressure for people who are living in countries where there is conflict, crisis, environmental degradation or class struggle is causing an inflection point,” they added.
For Walker, her last straw was in 2024 when she received a text message from an unknown entity with a disturbing video that showed a friend and fellow transgender woman being brutally murdered.
“The person messaged me and said, ‘I know where you live and you’re next,’” she explained. “I was afraid and needed to go anywhere apart from Jamaica, so I reached out to Rainbow Railroad to get some help.”
When asked if she had contacted any authorities to report the situation, Walker described a contemptuous relationship between local police and the country’s LGBTQ+ community.
“Jamaica is a homophobic country,” she explained. “Police take advantage of LGBTQ+ people. They will not take our reports.”
Once in contact with the Rainbow Railroad, Walker sent the organization photos of her injuries from various attacks that she’s endured over the years, as well as other evidence she collected. After that information was verified, the group worked quickly to help her secure a new passport and flee Jamaica.
Initially, she was set to escape to Amsterdam in 2024 with a plane ticket purchased by Rainbow Railroad. However, when Walker arrived at the gate, she didn’t have a return ticket to Jamaica. This led crews to deny her passage, determining her a flight risk.
“It was embarrassing,” Walker explained. “For someone to come and pull me out of line and say that you can’t board after going through security and handing in your luggage. It was more embarrassing than heartbreaking.”
After a few months of living in limbo, Rainbow Railroad coordinated another escape plan. This led Walker to successfully board a flight to Bogotá, Colombia, where she was able to file a refugee claim with the U.S. through its Priority 1 (P-1) pathway for queer and transgender people who are at-risk.
Her application was approved in November 2024 during the final months of former U.S. President Joe Biden’s term. However, when current President Donald Trump assumed the Oval Office for his second term, one of his first directives was to eliminate the special program for LGBTQ+ refugees.
“Unfortunately, once Trump came in, that program was squashed,” Matthews said. “It collapsed overnight.”
It wasn’t until her third attempt that Walker successfully escaped and came to Canada under the country’s Government-Assisted Refugees program (GAR). Unlike other resettlement programs, where individuals must apply directly, the GAR program requires refugees to be referred by the United Nations Refugee Agency or another referral organization, such as Rainbow Railroad.
The program, introduced in 2023, has allowed Rainbow Railroad to refer 250 people for resettlement in Canada per year. But Matthews says the Canadian government dramatically reduced immigration levels the following year under former Prime Minister Justin Trudeau, which has negatively impacted the LGBTQ+ refugees.
“The Canadian government actually removed some of our critical funding that we require in order to operate this program,” Matthews said. “In addition to that reduction in funding, we’ve also been seeing the sector at large be defunded widely.”
Matthews says partner organizations that offer newcomer and resettlement services, like The 519 community centre in Toronto, have also suffered funding cuts.
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Then, in March 2026, the Canadian government passed Bill C-12, which overhauls how the country manages asylum claims and border and immigration processing. Critics like Matthews take issue with the new law, including one stipulation which requires refugee claims to be made within a year of the claimant’s first arrival in Canada.
“This is obviously very concerning,” he said, adding that it could put people at risk of being sent back to countries where they face persecution.
Meanwhile, Walker officially arrived in Toronto in December 2025 and has been working to start a new life, free to be herself without worrying about her safety.
“When the immigration officer told me I was approved, I was over the moon, but I was still a little skeptical because I was previously approved to go to the U.S. and then it didn’t happen,” Walker said.
“Being a person from the streets, you go through so much; nothing can break you,” she said. “I was in a place where I was hiding who I was, running from police, running from the wider population.
“I dreamed about going to a place that was better for me. Where I can go to work and get any job I feel like and show up as I am, dressed as a female.”
Walker is gearing up to openly celebrate her first-ever Pride in Toronto at the end of June and will march in the parade with a cohort of attendees from The 519 community centre.
“I’m overly excited and counting down the days!” she exclaimed.
It’s set to be a momentous celebration after a long and turbulent journey to safety, but for the tens of thousands of people who are still reaching out to Rainbow Railroad, help can’t come soon enough.