British colonialism has led to homophobic beliefs and laws that are still in place today, an openly gay reverend said on Thursday.

Augustine Tanner-Ihm, senior minister at Wesley Methodist Church in Hamilton, said colonisation was never about taking land, but about controlling people.

He explained: “[Colonisation] controlled Black bodies through enslavement, it controlled women’s bodies through the patriarchy, it controlled workers’ bodies through the class system, it controlled queer bodies through law, religion, shame and silence.”

He added that laws against homosexuality came from an empire that “believed it was right to define its civilisation with morality, gender, family and sexuality for others”.

The Reverend Dr Tanner-Ihm spoke during a panel at the Bermuda Sailors Home that addressed the root causes of LGBTQ+ discrimination.

Dozens attended the event organised by OutBermuda, which also featured award-winning researcher Myron M Beasley and activists Kristin White and Linda Bogle-Mienzer as panellists.

Dr Beasley, Professor of American Studies and Gender and Sexuality Studies at Bates College, is also openly gay and said colonialism even showed itself in the way that buildings and highways were designed and that religion was used to uphold many “archaic laws”.

He explained: “Religion is the thing that many of us wrestle most with when we’re dealing with internalised homophobia and internalised racism and is the thing that we really work against when it comes to mental health.”

Ms Bogle-Mienzer shared how she was rejected by the church she grew up in when she started to acknowledge her sexuality.

She said: “That type of control coming from what we were taught was the centre of love creates mental violence.

“You don’t have to physically beat me — what you’re telling me in your actions in something as simple as ‘hello, you’re not good enough’ is violence.”

Ms Bogle-Mienzer added that she felt shame that was “bought and fostered out of slavery, because that’s how they were able to control, by saying you’re less than”.

She explained: “As a Black gay woman, my biggest shame has come from trying to exist in the Black community as a gay woman and in the gay community as a Black woman.”

Artist Yassine Chentouf moderated the panel and said homophobia was “forced upon” Black Bermudians and “derivative of colonisation as a force”.

Ms White, the owner of store and tour centre Long Story Short, highlighted how Bermuda became the first British Overseas Territory to participate in the Transatlantic Slave Trade in 1616 and how formerly enslaved persons were still restricted after the Emancipation Act was passed in 1834.

She explained: “The period of enslavement and laws that were created during that time created a system of oppression and restriction and upheld a system that ensured that segregation on the island would last until 1971.”