LGBT Rights Global Trends: How Have The Situation Changed Now?
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Nihal Rajapaksha- 0
- 12 minutes read
It is impossible to think how 2020 seemed like from the perspective of the LGBTQ+ community without identifying how the prevailing coronavirus pandemic put a wrench in the operations and turned into a tumultuous year. The pandemic brought out fault lines of discrimination, leaving some more vulnerable than others related to prognosis, infection, and economic impact that include this community. On this United Nations: Zero Discrimination Day let us have a look at the LGBT rights global trends and what is their future.
In nations where the LGBTQ people encounter social stigma, legal discrimination, and moral opprobrium, they have lesser economic chances and are more likely to be poor, specifically in respect where some LGBT people were left out of the economic recovery measures of the government. Will fighting with the fallout of the LGBT people also contended with an assault of run-of-the-mill homophobia and transphobia operated by governing bodies, ordinary members, and politicians.
LGBT Rights Global Trends: Challenges Faced
While we talk about the LGBT rights global trends it is crucial to state that the Anti-LGBT bias was directly evident in respect to Covid-19 in all the places across the globe. In Uganda, the police detained nearly 20 LGBT homeless youths on bogus charges of breaking a few Covid-19 regulations and they were tortured in the prison. Again in the Philippines, village officials humiliated LGBT individuals while enacting curfew. There are various such instances of the Covid-19 scenario, where people from this community have been tortured badly. Let us have a look at the several challenges that they faced specifically during this time.
Rejecting Rights
The US Government under the presidentship of Donald J. Trump desired to push back against the rights claims that were related to gender identity and sexual orientation, sending a perilous signal to governments across the globe that such human rights are disposable. It created a Commission on Unalienable Rights (CUR), designed as a corrective to a supposed “proliferation of rights.” The commission was set out to differentiate between so-called extraneous and fundamental rights, formulating a false hierarchy where the rights of the women and the LGBT right were at the bottom rung and religious and property right at the top.
In a gist, the CUR aimed to form a US blueprint for rights at odds with the notions of indivisibility and universality. This commission was created in the respect of a roll back of the rights of the LGBT in the United States under the highlight of religious exemption, most prominently a systematic attack on the rights of the trans people.
Now looking at the LGBT rights global trends, the UK have become more a loud battleground over the rights of the trans, as an unusual alliance of the social conservatives, some supporters and feminists on the left combined in nullifying the identity of transgender, dependent on the essentialist notion of gender as permanent, and offering it as a threat to children and women and the safeguarding the rights of women and trans people as a zero sum game.
Abuses In Medical System
Egypt was not alone in operating unscientific forced anal exams, that can increase to the level of torture, medical practitioners in Uganda, Tanzania, Tunisia, and Sri Lanka, among others, were active in doing them in 2020. This has been one of the biggest LGBT rights global trends in recent times.
The year witnessed an increasing international momentum for a finish to conversion therapy, the practice of trying to change the sexual orientation of an individual or gender identity. Nations including Albania, New Zealand, Canada, France, Germany, Australia, Malta, Ireland, Spain, United Kingdom, have either legislated some type of ban or taken serious steps towards doing so. The European Union has also called on states to ban the practice. The UN Independent Expert on Combatting Violence and Discrimination that is based on Gender Identity and Sexual Orientation provided a report to the UN on the topic.
Conversion therapy has been known to create considerable harm, mainly to children. In some scenarios, it is thought of as a form of torture or cruel, inhuman, and also degrading treatment. Having said that, there is space for caution given some reliance of jurisdiction on vague and overly broad illustration of what constitutes ‘conversion therapy’ and overreliance on harsh criminal penalties that may themselves further violate rights. A rights-respecting, holistic approach is known for including tailored public education, legal bans, and psychosocial support for the survivors.
Boston Hospital became the second important hospital for children in the United States to filter its standard of care for intersex children, altering course on conducting some non-consensual, cosmetic surgeries. These enhancements auger well for an end to medically irrelevant, non-consensual surgeries on intersex children, although a legislative aim to ban such surgeries in California remained unsuccessful. As the new year dawned, it got promising news that the child rights agency of India was suggesting a country-wide ban on these so-called “normalizing” surgeries.
Unexpected Allies
When we talk about LGBT rights global trends the challenges are many. But one last important challenge is this. In October, a documentary was aired on the times and life of Pope Francis that had an extract from an interview in which he extended support for civil unions. Despite the idea that the official doctrine of the Catholic Church stayed unchanged, Pope Francis has had a medium influence with regard to discrimination that is based on sexual orientation, both via his ‘who am I to judge?’ implication and his refocus on crucial problems of our time like inequality, poverty, and climate catastrophe over traditional sexual moral problems. His endorsement of civil unions accepts this portrayal a step further, lending the weight of Vatican to a message long advanced by gay advocacy teams that society will not fall, and will indeed be strong if the civil, secular law offers orderly identification of same-sex relationships.
LGBT Rights Global Trends: Views Of Several Nations On This Community
Despite big alterations in laws and norms revolving around the issue of same-sex marriage and the rights of the LGBT community across the globe, public opinion on the acceptance of homosexuality in society stays sharply divided by nation, region, and also economic development. The LGBT rights global trends find something similar to this. The discrimination still persists.
Many of the nations surveyed in 2002 and 2019 have witnessed a double-digit increase in acceptance of homosexuality. This contains a 21-point rise since 2002 in South Africa and a 19-point rise in South Korea over the same span of time. India also witnessed a 22-point rise since 2014, the initial time the question was asked of a nationally representative sample there.
There also has been a pretty big movement in acceptance of homosexuality over the last 17 years in two very varied places: Japan and Mexico. In both nations, just more than half said they accepted homosexuality in 2002, but now near to seven-in-ten say this. In Kenya, nearly 1 in 100 said homosexuality should be accepted in 2002, in comparison to 14% who say this now.
In many of the nations that have been surveyed, there also are variations on acceptance of homosexuality by education, income, age, and, in some scenarios, gender, and in various cases, these variations are substantial. Along with that, religion and its significance in the lives of people shape opinions in many nations. For instance, in some nations, those who are affiliated with a religious group happened to be less accepting of homosexuality compared to those who are unaffiliated.
Political ideology also has an important role in the acceptance of the queerness. In many nations, those on the political right are less accepting of this phenomenon compared to those on the left. And supporters of various right-wing populist parties in Europe are also less likely to view homosexuality as acceptable.
As per the LGBT rights global trends, attitudes on this problem are strongly associated with the wealth of a nation. In general, people coming from a wealthier and more developed economy are more accepting of this idea than are those in less wealthy and developed economies.
For instance, in Sweden, Germany, and the Netherlands all of which have a per-capita gross domestic product of more than $50,000, acceptance of queerness is among the highest measured throughout the 34 nations that have been surveyed. By contrast, in Kenya, Nigeria, and Ukraine, where per-capita GDP is less than $10,000, under two in ten say that this phenomenon should be accepted by society.
These are among the important findings of a survey that took place among 38,426 people in 34 nations from May 13 to Oct. 2, 2019. The research is a follow-up to a 2013 report that found many of the similar patterns as witnessed today, even though there has been a rise in acceptance of queerness across many of the nations surveyed in both years.
The 2019 survey illustrates that while majorities in 16 of the 34 nations surveyed say homosexuality should get acceptance in the society, global divides the remaining. Whereas 94 percent of those surveyed in Sweden state that homosexuality should be accepted, only 7percent of people in Nigeria assert the same. Across the 34 nations surveyed, a median of 52 percent agrees that this idea should be accepted with 38 percent saying that it should be discouraged.
On a regional dimension, acceptance of homosexuality is the largest in North America and Western Europe. Central and Eastern Europeans, however, are more distributed on the idea, with a median of 46 percent who state that homosexuality should be accepted and 44 percent claiming it should not be.
But in sub-Saharan Africa, the Middle East, Ukraine, and Russia, few assert that society should accept this idea; only in Israel (47%) and South Africa (54%) do more than a quarter holds this notion.
People in the Asia-Pacific area show tiny consensus on the matter. Over three-quarters of those who have been surveyed in Australia (81%) say homosexuality should get acceptance, as do 73 percent of Filipinos. In the meantime, only 9 percent in Indonesia agree. In the three Latin American nations that have been surveyed, strong majorities state they accept homosexuality in society.
Future Of LGBT Movement
Talking about the LGBT rights global trends, the LGBT movement had seen wins that an earlier generation would have never thought of: from the first-ever statewide famous votes legalizing same-sex marriage to the Former President Barack Obama accepting LGBT rights in his inaugural address to the country. However, as the fight for the legal equality of LGBT people in the United States and across the globe continues to advance, the movement encounters a series of questions related to the future. How will it capitalize on the present momentum to carry on to advance a wide range of problems and to influence social stigmas for making equality both a legal right and a lived reality for the LGBT people? What new aims will the LGBT movement take? Who will be the future leaders of the movement?
As per the latest LGBT rights global trends, even though this community is facing a lot of hindrances in getting themselves accepted in the society, the future is yet to be seen, and this being a global topic of discussion, and looking at the statistics of nations across the globe it can be asserted that time is not far when we will unitedly celebrate the pride month and not just be on the street to just protest for the rights of the LGBT community.
