LGBTQ2S+ rights and discrimination in the 21st century
LGBTQ2S+ rights and discrimination in the 21st century
Our world is unequal in many ways. A prominent and frequently discussed inequality in our world is the rights and discrimination of people in the LGBTQ2S+ community, specifically trans rights. The community is immensely threatened and there's a lack of representation around the world. Much of the discrimination against the community comes from fascist countries around the world like the United States, as twenty-five of the fifty states do not protect LGBTQ2S+ Americans rights.
Did you know that based on the statistics of mid two thousand twenty-five, sixty four countries criminalize the queer community and thirteen countries have put the death penalty in place? This is far too much discrimination for the twenty-first century and shockingly these statistics are somewhat better than those of two thousand twenty-two with seventy-one countries criminalizing queer people and 11 having the death penalty in place. The LGBTQ2S+ community faces a lot of discrimination from day to day. Whether that is in school, the workplace, out in public or other places frequented throughout someone's daily life. This essay will bring to light many negative experiences that have occured and continue to occur in our world that impact the LGBTQ2S+ community.
To begin, there are laws all over the world that threaten the community. Many of these laws are on the rise as our world is at a constant shifting state of political views on who should and should not have rights. Many negative laws and bills have been put in place In North America in the years two thousand twenty-one and two thousand twenty-three. One of these bills/laws was the “Don't Say Gay,” bill, also known as The Parental Rights in Education Act (HB 1557) ,that was passed on March twenty-eighth two thousand twenty-two in Florida as well as twenty other states after it was first implemented. This law prevents teachers and students from discussing sexuality, race, or gender identity in kindergarten (early years) through grade twelve (year thirteen) in schools throughout the United States. This in turn creates a negative connotation around being queer thus giving many children the impression that growing up to realize one's own queerness is gross, disgusting or wrong. This makes it impossible for kids growing up to be open minded or recognize that they themselves might be queer and that being queer is one hundred percent normal and okay.
Attempts to create changes to the LGBTQ+ Protection Policy known as Policy 713 in New Brunswick in two thousand twenty-three affected the lives of transgender, nonbinary, and genderqueer youth in Canada, a country well known for its acceptance of cultural, racial, orientational, and gender equality as well as diversity. These changes include many arguments of parental rights and consent referring to the going ons of one's own child. This Policy was first put in place in two thousand twenty to protect trans and nonbinary youth in the Canadian education system and allow them to participate in class and sports with their aligned gender identity. With the changes proposed not only did this attempt gravely affect New Brunswick trans youth but it also could have created unsafe situations for those youth who may not be in accepting environments or households. While I read through this article on CBC, I had many bursts of outrage, cringe, upset and disheartened feelings surrounding the actions this updated policy included. As a trans person myself the changes to the policy broke my heart. This policy has had many different views and opinions shared about it to the point the prime minister at the time, Justin Trudeau, had been fighting the premier of New Brunswick to revert the changes to the policy and these changes were thankfully reverted near the end of two thousand twenty-three.
Since two thousand eighteen there have been nine hundred eighty-seven bills proposed that prevent the rights of LGBTQ+ people and more specifically transgender and gender queer folks. In two thousand twenty-five alone, two-hundred-eleven bills were proposed, one hundred twenty-two of which were passed into legislation directly targeting transgender people, most of them being aimed at trans women.
As of two-thousand twenty-five, twenty-seven states have banned transgender people from participating in sports on a team that aligns with their gender identity. Every single one of these bills threaten the community. A report done by the Trevor Project a couple years ago shows that in the years two-thousand twenty-one to two-thousand twenty-two, forty two percent of the thirty five thousand transgender and non-binary youth who were surveyed considered suicide. Two thirds of those surveyed also stated that the threats surrounding their rights had caused a large amount of mental distress and subsequently resulted in an increase in the mental health crisis among queer youth. As a queer individual it is common to feel the world is against us considering there are sixty four countries in the world that criminalize homosexuality, eleven countries that sentence queer individuals with the death penalty, and the cherry on top, twenty-nine out of the fifty six countries that are part of the Commonwealth criminalize the community.
I often find it easy to feel as if I'm the only person who feels this way, which is why our community means so much to all queer people and why our place is important in the world despite the many targets on our backs.
I am absolutely horrified by all the laws and controversies in our world surrounding the queer community. As a queer youth approaching adulthood, I am terrified and deeply concerned for what the future looks like for the next generations of queer youth. Thankfully six hundred forty-four of the nine hundred ninety-one bills proposed have failed but between those that have been accepted and the overturn of Roe v. Wade, this issue of rights is now extending to other marginalized groups and communities in our world and there needs to be a solution. All of these happenings have made me really lose my faith in humanity and our current world.
To continue on the subject of rights, let’s talk about washroom rights. The debate about whether or not a genderqueer individual may use a restroom that aligns with their gender identity has been active since March two thousand sixteen when North Carolina’s legislature passed House Bill 2, a bill banning trans youth, as well as trans adults, from using restroom facilities corresponding with their gender identities. This debate has gone on for over nine years by now and no one has even made up their mind about restroom rights. Quite frankly I question why we even need to have gendered bathrooms when people are welcome to use family restrooms, gender neutral restrooms and other restrooms that don’t put a person into a biological box. I myself have had to fight for my rights to use the boys restroom at my previous school. It’s appalling how we ban going to the washroom, many trans youths now hold their needs until they get home because of the fact they do not 1. Feel safe enough 2. Welcome to use the restroom and 3. Feel validated to do so. Not only is the practice of holding biological needs during a minimum six hour day but also an appalling statistic exists where forty one percent of trans people will be sexually assaulted or worse before the age of thirty. Transgender people already have very high rates of suicide, attempted suicide, mental illness and especially bullying. All of these factors play into the mindset of being looked to as an object rather than a person. It amazes me how in our current world if you do not fit in what I like to refer to as “the default setting”(white, cisgender, heterosexual etc) but also people with the utmost privilege being white cisgender men. The world tends to for lack of a better word, execute your humanity, the will to be a person. This lends to the huge mental health crisis that is currently taking on our world faster than ahy pandemic. Humanity is simply horrifying and we cannot have another person become a statistic.
This survey done by the “World Economic Forum”, shows that most if not all of our world is undereducated about gender identity, gender bias, gender orientation, gender binary and all other aspects that come with not being comfortable with one's own body. The fact that we as a society cannot comprehend and treat trans and queer people let alone trans and queer youth with respect or even a small amount of willingness to learn and step in their world for a second shows that society may truly never see transgender and queer people as human and that in itself is by far is one of the most dehumanizing things a person will experience.
Not only have our rights been taken away but also our privilege to have a voice. Our world is dominated by cisgender heterosexual privileged white men who have not had even an ounce of discrimination thrown towards them because there is simply nothing for us to discriminate against them. The amount of deaths among the trans community, not to mention the amount of ethnically diverse trans people's deaths that have occurred and continue to occur is absolutely appalling. Our world is here to embrace the diversity and the uniqueness of nature so my question is why can we not seem to do the same in turn for the human beings that inhabit this earth, because really aren’t we all just human at the center of it all?
Truly, why can’t we treat each other with the same respect we are all dying to receive? Being a human being is hard enough and we all struggle no matter what our background may be. Rights are what our society is built on and if we remove those rights from others our society will crumble in due time. Our world is falling apart and we choose to go after those with the biggest hearts and smallest voices. You can not make a difference in this world on your own anymore, you need an army of people to even invoke the idea of change let alone put it into action. Human rights need to have more precedence in our world, they are important for mental health by giving a person the idea that they are worthy of living. That they belong. That they are enough.
- Devon Afquir (They/He/She)
Written Jul 15, 2023 Edited Jan 16, 2026
Resources
https://www.learningforjustice.org/magazine/transgender-bathroom-laws-history
https://www.weforum.org/agenda/2017/01/transgender-rights-how-supportive-is-your-country/
https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/new-brunswick/nb-policy-713-review-hogan-1.6863231
https://www.weforum.org/stories/2017/01/transgender-rights-how-supportive-is-your-country/ (Link to World Economic Forum Survey)
https://www.humandignitytrust.org/lgbt-the-law/map-of-criminalisation/
Comments
Post a Comment