What Has the UN Done for Me? The Slow Progression of LGBTI+ Rights at the UN
By: Advocacy
Tags: UN, Equality, LGBT, Social Justice, Human Rights

By Ryan Oberlag, UNA-NCA Advocacy Fellow

“Human rights are women’s rights, and women’s rights are human rights,” exclaimed Hillary Clinton at the 4th World Conference on Women in 1995. At that same conference, Beverly Palesa Ditsie declared that “lesbian rights are women’s rights,” and became the first openly gay person to address a United Nations Conference. A prodigious moment for gay rights at the United Nations, Ditsie’s speech underpinned the dire need for member states to recognize discrimination against LGBTI+ persons. Despite the United Nations’ strong and important advocacy for human rights, exemplified by numerous conventions which establish rights to women, persons with disabilities, children, and indiginous peoples, the organization has lacked severely in protecting LGBTI+ peoples.

As a gay man who was born and raised by lesbian parents in conservative, rural Missouri, I have seen the consequences of a failure to recognize LGBTI+ people as what we are — people. Since the adoption of the Universal Declaration on Human Rights (UDHR), the United Nations has committed to upholding human rights for all persons. Understanding the history of the UN’s support, or lack thereof, is important as I investigate what the United Nations has done for me, a member of the LGBTI+ community, and what the United Nations can do for my community in the future.

Before we get too in depth, I think it is important that we define some of the acronyms you might have heard, and ones you might be hearing for the first time. For the purposes of this article, I will be using the acronyms SOGI and LGBTI, however I may also use the more broad term “queer”. SOGI (Sexual Orientation and Gender Identity) is an acronym that has predominantly been used by the UN in their more recent documents on queer rights. This acronym is useful because it allows for the inclusion of all diverse sexual orientations and gender identities.

A more common acronym is LGBTI+, although you might be more familiar with “LGBT” or “LGBTQIA”. The letters stand for the same thing, L is for lesbian, G is for gay, B is for Bi-sexual, T is for transgender, Q is for queer/questioning, I is for intersex, and finally A for asexual. LGBTI+ is a way of ensuring representation to all orientations and identities while keeping a short and concise acronym. Finally, we have the term “queer” (Yes, Just like that Queer Eye show on Netflix!). What was once an insult against the community has now been reclaimed and is used as an umbrella term representing all people who do not identify as being cis-gender or heterosexual. These are merely the tip of the iceberg when it comes to all the terms and acronyms associated with the SOGI community, and a more complete list can be found at OutRight International.

The Beginnings

To understand why it is important to establish LGBTI+ rights, we need to look at early examples of international human rights law. Prior to the creation of the modern human rights legal system, international protections for human rights included the International Labor Organization and an 1890 convention ending the Atlantic slave trade. The League of Nations attempted to build upon international human rights law, but ultimately failed and disbanded after World War II. On December 10, 1948, the United Nations General Assembly signed the Universal Declaration on Human Rights into international law, a foundation for international norms. While never specifically mentioning LGBTI+ peoples, the UDHR states in its first article, “All human beings are born free and equal in dignity and rights.”

Several articles establish universal rights, including Article 16 which gives people the right to marry and start a family. Notably, this article does not mandate that marriage is limited between a man and a woman, yet at the same time it does not specify the right to same sex marriage. The UDHR, under Articles 19 and 20, gives LGBTI+ people protection when it comes to advocating for our rights and expressing ourselves. With the rights to freedom of opinion and expression (Article 19) and freedom of peaceful assembly and association (Article 20), LGBTI+ people should be able to freely and peacefully host pride marches, advocate for ourselves in the political sphere, and share queer information without being harrassed. Today, however, more than 80 countries in the world criminalize homosexuality and do not have protections for LGBTI+ people.

The International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights (ICCPR) protects the civil liberties and political freedoms many people enjoy. Being a legally binding document, the ICCPR mandates that all members who are party to the treaty must obey the rules set out. Articles in the ICCPR state that no humans shall be denied peaceful assembly, privacy, or their life. Yet we see constant violations of these rules against LGBTI+ people. Looking at states who are party to the ICCPR, we can see that a significant amount of them are also states that criminalize homosexuality through imprisonment or the death penalty.

These early documents indicate that the United Nations has a clear and strong commitment to upholding human rights. The UDHR and the ICCPR established groundwork that was absent from international human rights law. That said, these documents did not directly address LGBTI+ people, much less their rights. It would be another 50 years after signing the UDHR that the UN would directly address sexual orientation and gender identity (SOGI). It is important that LGBTI+ people be directly mentioned in discussions on human rights at the UN as so many continue to bear the brunt of an unaccepting society. Clearly, it is not enough for international law to vaguely address “all persons”. We have already seen treaties protecting women, children, indigenous people, and persons with disabilities because too many times their rights, also protected by the UDHR and ICCPR, were violated. The exclusion of LGBTI+ people in these documents would start to change in the 1990’s as LGBTI+ activists became more visible globally.

The 90's

In 1994 the Human Rights Committee, the body responsible for implementing the ICCPR, heard the case Toonen v. Australia. Nicholas Toonen, a gay rights activist and HIV/AIDS worker, complained to the committee that parts of Tasmania’s criminal code violated articles 2, 17, and 26 of the ICCPR. These violations are centered around a lack of privacy, which would allow police to enter the home of a man they suspected to be engaging in consensual sex with another adult man. The committee ruled in favor of Toonen, invalidating the Tasmanian criminal code and overturning anti-sodomy laws in Australia, thereby legalizing homosexuality. This landmark case was the first time the ICCPR listed sexual orientation as protected in its antidiscrimination articles.

As AIDS ravaged its way through the 80’s, the disease was finally getting the attention it needed at the UN in the 90’s, likely due to a change in administration at the White House. While not a disease solely contracted by gay and transgender persons, this community has been disproportionately impacted by AIDS and often faced severe stigmatizations. In 1996 the UN commissioned UNAIDS, a partnership of 11 UN organizations that would come together to form a strong front on the fight against AIDS. UNAIDS continues to be a leader in eliminating HIV, prompting infections to decrease by 40% since the disease’s peak. This is significant as some members of the public at the time viewed AIDS a punishment for being gay, with 43% of Americans seeing the disease as God’s punishment for immorality.

Despite efforts at the Centers for Disease Control (CDC) to research AIDS in its early outbreak in the United States, the response from the White House was ignorant at best and blatantly homophobic. This led local organizers to look after their own community. Here in DC, a gay nightclub known as the ClubHouse allowed the Walker Whitman clinic to utilize their mailing lists to spread awareness of the disease; their campaign would evolve into Us Helping Us, an organization that helps raise awareness and support among the African American community in DC. Since then, the United States has progressed and is now the largest bilateral donor to the response against HIV.

The 1990’s showed that the UN was starting to recognize the suffering experienced by LGBTI+ people. Their help in advocating for our rights allowed for more and more LGBTI+ people to become visible to the international community. The UN began to allow for an increasingly open dialogue on LGBTI+ rights at their conferences, as evidenced with Beverly Ditsie’s speech to the 4th UN Conference on Women. These steps have laid the foundation for the present-day framework of LGBTI+ protections at the United Nations.

Modern Day and Looking to the Future

In the past 20 years, the UN has made considerable progress with LGBTI+ rights. In 2011 the Human Rights Council passed a resolution that would establish a report and panel discussion that reviews discriminatory practices and violence targeted towards LGBTI+ peoples in all member states, including but not limited to honor killings, discrimination in employment, healthcare, housing, and arbitrary arrest. States present at the panel brought up a myriad of issues; some believed that the discussion took time away from other instances of discrimination, while others saw this as an infringement on their culture.

However, most agreed that there needed to be further discussion on LGBTI+ rights. Another resolution in 2016 went even further and established the new position of an independent observer who would assess implementation of international law, raise awareness of violence and discrimination, conduct and facilitate advisory services, and more. These services are needed; a European Union study shows that from 2012 to 2020, discrimination against LGBTI+ peope has risen from 37% to 43%. This is brutally evident in the Polish city of Białystok, as LGBTI+ people were attacked during their equality march. The attacks were both physical and mental as agitators hurled slurs and flash bombs at the marchers.

Throughout the 2000’s, a handful of adopted UN General Assembly resolutions included offering protection to SOGI individuals against forms of arbitrary executions. Additionally, the World Health Organization just last year finally removed “Gender Identity Disorder” from its International Classification of Diseases. This decision will reduce a stigma surrounding transgender persons and pressure other countries who have not made this move to follow international health guidelines. Dr. Lale Say, Coordinator for the Adolescents and at-Risk Populations Team at the World Health Organization says that this decision was partly influenced by their transgender patients.

The UN has slowly started to recognize the issues we face. Going forward it will be important for the UN to do three things to make true progress universal SOGI rights and establish international norms. The UN will need to continue to make LGBTI+ people visible on the world scene and promote these individuals in a positive light. Featuring people such as Beverely Palesea Ditsie at UN functions, especially during times when LGBTI+ people are not the sole topic, is a great example on how visibility can be achieved. Secondly, the UN will need to continue an open dialogue on LGBTI+ rights and engage in dialogue with experts on the matter when seeking information on how to handle these rights. We have already seen progress on this front with the 2011 Human Rights Council Report on discriminatory laws and procedures against LGBTI+ people. Finally, the creation and adoption of a Universal Declaration on the Rights of LGBTI+ people will send a strong message to the international community that these are the norms and agenda the UN is wishing to set.

Looking at norms developed by women’s rights movements can provide clarity on how LGBTI+ norms will positively affect the international community. The passing of the Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination Against Women (CEDAW) has encouraged member states to pass laws that protect women and allowed civil society to admonish states who fail to protect women. Although its progress may have been slow, the United Nations, and the international community as a whole, is currently in the beginning of what could be a landmark moment for LGBTI+ rights. A continued effort to advocate for LGBTI+ rights at the UN will hopefully lead myself and other members of my community to answer positively when asked, “What has the UN done for me?”.