LGBT Rights Argumentative Essay

Sexual minorities rights essay

Nowadays, many sexual minorities, or LGBTI, are discriminated against or stigmatized because of their real or attributed gender role or identity. Adverse attitude exhibited by many society members prevents LGBT individuals from fully enjoying their universal human rights; some of LGBT individuals become victims of hate crimes and cannot rely on protection when being attacked, while some have to flee the countries where they are at risk of being tortured or even killed. The explanation is simple: too few figures of authority or leading politicians take a firm stand against manifestations of homophobia, transphobia, discrimination, and violence. 

LGBT Essay Thesis statement 

This paper discusses the rights of sexual minorities, arguing that gender identity and sexual orientation are inalienable characteristics of a person’s inner nature, which makes discrimination and violation of gay rights unethical and unacceptable.

Argumentative essay English 101

Society and sexual minorities

Sexual minority is a term that refers to people whose sexual identity, sexual preferences, and sexual orientation differ from the majority of the individuals in the society. Though applied primarily to Lesbian, Gay, and Bisexual persons, this term may have different interpretations. These characteristics may include:

• narrow definitions, covering only homosexuals;
• or broad definitions that also refer to intersex, genderqueer, or transgender individuals, that is –  all persons whose sexual behavior, sexual preferences, or sexual orientation are beyond the usual sex-role models.

Thus, one may suggest that sexual minority is an umbrella term that encompasses Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Transgender, and Intersex (LGBTI) populations as well as individuals with differing gender identity and/ or sexual orientation.

LGBT Rights Argumentative Essay

Unfortunately, homophobic and transphobic view of individuals who are LGBTI are present all around the world, although these differ significantly between the contiinents and within a single country. Prejudice, outdated approaches, and inaccurate information about what constitutes gender identity and sexual orientation, and the biased view of LGBTI individuals in the media – all these factors contribute to the formation of negative attitudes towards LGBT communities.

Moreover, LGBTI people are often portrayed as a threat to national and religious interests, as well as to traditional notions of gender and family. Due to this and the fact that the authorities rarely condemn homophobic statements, many LGBTI people hide the gender identity and sexual orientation in everyday life because they fear negative reactions they may receive at school, at work, or even in the family.

Furthermore, they often fear that awareness of others about their sexual orientation and gender identity will inevitably lead to discrimination, harassment, rejection, or even violence.

Argumentative essay English 101

Protection of rights of sexual minorities

As previously mentioned, LGBTI people are at serious risk of becoming victims of hate crimes or hate-motivated incidents. However, such violence, fueled by a feeling of deep hatred and rejection of the actual or attributable gender identity or sexual orientation of the victim, is rarely included in state or federal legislation.

A small number of complaints of such violence is also a problem, as the victims often choose not to report the incidences of abuse.

In fact, police often do not have the proper training to effectively investigate crimes motivated by hatred.

There is ample evidence that even if such incidents or crimes are recorded, their discriminatory motivation, as a rule, is not reflected in official statistics, and they are not recognized as homophobic or transphobic. Moreover, discriminatory and insulting remarks against LGBTI people, including those from political and religious figures, also exacerbate the problem, as incidents of hate are not clearly publicly condemned and even more likely to be encouraged. Therefore, governments should become more active in their efforts to combat hatred against LGBTI people.

Argumentative essay topics

When discussing the rights of LGBTI people, it is sometimes considered that the protection of the human rights of people from these communities consists of creating new or “special” rights for them. This approach, however, is misleading, since international human rights law unequivocally recognizes that all individuals, despite their sexual preferences and sexual sexual orientation, have all the rights and freedoms without any discrimination.

Moreover, recent changes in legislative and judicial practice have led to the consistent adoption of an interpretation that recognizes gender identity and sexual orientation as prohibited grounds for discrimination.  However, the protection of LGBTI people in many countries is not obvious in the current anti-discrimination legislation. Often, this protection is not clearly defined or does not extend beyond the very limited concept of gender identity, which seriously reduces its effectiveness. Hence, there is pressing need to resolve this situation by incorporating “gender identity” in anti-discrimination legislation as a clearly unacceptable basis for discrimination. Moreover, national structures for promoting equality should play a key role in fighting discrimination based on gender identity or sexual orientation, ensuring the availability of complaints mechanisms for LGBTI people. 

Argumentative essay English 101

Conclusion

Unfortunately, LGBTI people nowadays are stigmatized and discriminated against because of their real or attributed gender identity or sexual orientation. Often, they are at serious risk of becoming victims of hate crimes or hate-motivated incidents, making some flee from countries where they are at risk of being tortured or executed.

This is largely due to the fact that LGBTI people are often portrayed as a threat to national and religious interests and are prejudiced against, which contributes to the formation of negative attitudes towards these communities. All this prevents LGBTI people from fully enjoying their universal human rights, as they often fear that awareness of others of their true gender identity and sexual orientation will inevitably lead to discrimination, harassment, rejection, or even violence.

Though current legislative and judicial practice recognizes gender identity and sexual orientation as prohibited grounds for discrimination, the protection of LGBTI people, however, remains non-obvious in many places in the world. Hence, there is a pressing need to resolve this situation and promote equality, as gender identity and sexual orientation are inalienable aspects of a person’s inner nature, which makes discrimination and violation of rights on these grounds completely unacceptable.