Human Rights Council Votes 23-18 To Approve LGBT Rights Watchdog Position

[LebaneseDude 6,146]

Via BuzzFeed

The United Nations Human Rights Council voted Thursday to create the institution’s first LGBT rights watchdog. The resolution passed in a vote of 23 to 18, with 6 abstentions. The person appointed to this role will be known as an “independent expert” and the position is charged with monitoring “violence and discrimination based on sexual orientation and gender identity.” This was the most ambitious effort yet to advance LGBT rights within the United Nations system, and the resolution included the strongest language to date suggesting LGBT rights should be a concern of international human rights law.

The two previous resolutions concerning LGBT rights passed by the United Nations Human Rights Council merely called for the UN’s human rights office to prepare reports examining LGBT rights. But this and the few other mentions of sexual orientation or gender identity in other UN documents have been so modest that the UN Security Council made headlines by including a reference to sexual orientation in a press statement condemning the attack on a gay nightclub in Orlando, Florida — even though the document was not a formal resolution, it was notable that the UN’s most powerful committee had mentioned sexual orientation in any kind of declaration.

[LebaneseDude 6,146]

Hillary ha legacy on the UN lives on

----

this is clearly a light-hearted post.

[weed 78,957]

Yaaassss

maybe some day Gaga will be an ambassador like Jolie was 

[Didymus 34,380]

Hmm. This always makes me feel so double.

On the one hand, fantastic, very necessary. On the other hand, I'm not happy with just taking highly problematic and culturally transmitted sexual labels for granted as if they shouldn't be examined anymore, and we can use them in political contexts like this.

I'm also thinking about the non-universality of our sexual labels in other cultures. Like historians and anthropologists have known for a while now, Islamic culture lacked a clear concept of homosexuality - same-sex behavior does not necessarily imply a homosexual identity. Our Western culture seems to be pretty much alone in linking sexual behavior to actual categories of personal being, and despite that concept (which is not scientifically supported) being spread via colonization (with all the consequences we are now combatting under the ironic flag of cultural superiority), I do think it's important to look at sexuality as either a category of behavior supported by the latest scientific facts (which means we'll have to give up our precious idea that exclusive heterosexuality is a natural norm) to apply it universally, or as an elusive category that has to be read in different contexts separately (or a mix of the two, but not this vague third one).

Might sound unrelated but I do think it's important in the context of prevention. To use an obvious but still urgent example: the mix of Islamic culture (in which same-sex behavior was widespread for centuries, to the disgust of Europeans) with the idea of "homosexuality" proved to be directly related to a staggering increase of intolerance towards same-sex behavior ànd the individuals now portraying themselves as homosexuals, inspired by the Western cultural myth of sexual categories being constitutive of a man's identity, a concept Near Eastern culture could not provide due to its cultural ideals of masculinity.

We might have to consider that a reappraisal of our cultural myths surrounding sexuality are a better route to preventing acts of violence in the context of sexual preference/gender identity than to just suppress the damage that's already been done (partly because of them). It's just a shame that people growing up even in Western countries aren't properly educated about cultural diversity in terms of sexuality and how uniquely Western understandings of it have developed (and how scientific studies are systematically uprooting them more and more).

I don't know, I think more can be done in this area. But obviously this is encouraging. What is discouraging to me is that this "progress" doesn't ever seem to be linked with an increased understanding of sexuality in scientific terms, everyone being more satisfied to hang on to cultural myths that have been proved to be dangerous and directly related to those acts of violence we now have to combat.

[Kulture Kiari 3,433]

2 hours ago, neptugne said:

Yaaassss

maybe some day Gaga will be an ambassador like Jolie was 

I was gonna say this, but in a different way:

It may be a huge reach, but why cant Gaga be appointed to this position?

But wait, nvm, we would all be saying "This bitch has time to do this but not LG5!?" so forget my idea. Besides, she's a popstar!