Today, 17 May, is International Day Against Homophobia,
Biphobia & Transphobia (IDAHOBIT). The
day, started in 2014, aims to draw attention to the violence and discrimination
experienced by lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, intersex people and all
other people with diverse sexual orientations, gender identities or
expressions, and sex characteristics.
May 17 is a crucial date for LGBT+ people around the world
as it was this day in 1990 when the World Health Organization declassified homosexuality
as a mental disorder.
Below, Adam Satur, School Support Administrator and Co-Chair
of Napier’s LGBT+
Staff Network, shares an insightful piece and a reminder of why days like
IDAHOBIT are still important.
Content warning: bigotry of various kinds.
While much of the world becomes formally more accepting of
various genders and orientations, fringe opinions of those who oppose these
variations are becoming increasingly vocal, along with voices opposing
multiculturalism, scientific literacy and bodily autonomy. It may seem easy to
repeat that “sticks and stones may break my bones but words will never hurt
me”, but for many, this is not the case. Ink on a page, pixels on a screen and
vibrations in the air are harmless in themselves, but their meaning is not.
Just as speaking out against hate and division helps us to find our community
of support, hateful and divisive words attract those who feel slighted by the
world, who see changes which benefit particular demographics while their own
circumstances continue to deteriorate relative to society as a whole. To those
slighted, the inverse correlation between these changes can seem like a clear
sign that “traditional values” are key, and that gays, gender diversity, critical
race theory and abortion are the causes of increased poverty, illness and
social division. This contrast can sell the idea of obstructing “the gay
agenda”, multiculturalism, feminism to those who resent that no one seemed to
help them gain social mobility and reach the same status as certain others.
Of course, intersectionality is not simply a buzz-word.
Racism exists; deprivation exists; sexism and patriarchy exist; homophobia,
biphobia and transphobia exist; addiction exists; ablism exists. Any of these
by themselves is harmful. Any of these in combination is worse. Our siblings in
the queer community in this country are still at risk and still struggle to
access medical support needed to live their authentic lives. Our queer siblings
in other countries around the world can be legally killed for simply existing.
People of colour in the UK face conscious and subconscious racism, while the north-western
world continues to profit from the poverty conditions of others in the global
south and east. White refugees are welcomed far more readily than refugees who
happen to have been born in a different part of the world, where more melanin
is common. People seeking abortions (and sexual health support) in this country
face protesters who assume them to be murderers, while even people in the
United States of America risk becoming criminalised again for seeking
potentially lifesaving medical support, and in other parts of the world,
children are abandoned in orphanages, sometimes because they are not the preferred
sex.
Decolonisation may seem like a flowery way of bending to
social pressure and pandering to people’s feelings but really, it allows us to
recognise the truth in science, sociology, history, which has otherwise been
obscured by previous “academics” pandering to their own feelings and telling
the leaders of their society what they wanted to hear. Through decolonisation,
we can shine the light on gender diversity around the world, throughout
history, and the ways that societies included and embraced various forms
diversity, where gender diverse, deaf indigenous Americans of different nations
and languages would have been able to travel across the continent and
communicate in Plains
Indian Sign Language which was broadly known and used for trade. Through
decolonisation, we expand our scientific view and try to rebuild the knowledge
which was destroyed, of how different cultures worked as part of an ecosystem, harnessed
the medicinal properties of nature, and identified symptoms and conditions
among their own people.
Currently marginalised identities are not newly created by
those with nothing better to do. They are not people who were unproductive for
thousands of years and are only now trying to join the global structure. We
have always been here, learning and creating, but for a while we were hidden,
until society realised that they wouldn’t burn in hell for loving us the way
the bible told them to all along. If Belinda Carlisle was correct, then hateful
actions impact on the sanctity of the world we live in. Fight bigotry and heal
its damage with love.