JAN 15 — The Yogyakarta Principles, also known as Application of International Human Rights Law in relation to Sexual Orientation, Gender Identity was designed to address concerns related to human rights of lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender (LGBT) people, and issues of intersexuality, which appears to have been devised with the best of intentions. But just like mulled wine, things, which are made for explicit purposes gets unnoticed. 

It’s depressing, but we live in a society with people who still look at lesbians, gays, bisexuals, or transgenders (LGBT) with contempt and hatred. These people are discriminated against every day on the basis of physical, social, even cultural characteristics, and this bigotry is, to be very clear, quite wrong. For instance, in India, 700,000 transgenders get little or no schooling, their families often reject them, and they end up doing sex work or ritualised begging.

Furthermore, no legislation has been passed in countries like India, Indonesia, Malaysia and many others to eliminate such terrible discrimination. Worse, in many African countries where homosexuality is already illegal, more draconian anti-gay laws are being passed and violence against LGBT people is increasing. 

Seen sceptically, the legislation that many Americans are cheering for can become another hurdle that LGBT job seekers will have to jump over in order to find employment. In such complex issues, laws should be carefully designed and the Yogyakarta Principles can navigate a way for the policy makers.

The link between governance and human rights can be organised around three areas: Democracy, service delivery and rule of law. In order to achieve inclusive growth and to be able to make a fair society, these areas should be addressed tout de suite.

While trying to address these issues, one needs to understand that marginalised communities like LGBT are very akin to systems theory. It’s interactive, complex and dynamic. When the community becomes the system, the dynamics of time plays out in maintaining its boundary. 

Based on identity, the dimensions of identity and its interaction become vital in time and space. One’s skin, one’s appearance or even one’s love gives us dynamism of endless possibilities. And to solve this, one cannot apply the same solution everywhere. One is forced to synthesise the logic of collective action within the system. 

In short, to synthesise the system, governments need to start tackling the issue from two ways. First, through citizenship status and second by enabling them to access educational benefits.

One of the countries where LGBT rights are justly recognised is Canada. It has enforced their recognition through Constitutional framework. Outstandingly, it has even allowed gays and lesbians to serve openly in military forces too, where else, in countries like India, where transgender people are easily visible in public places, they are hardly recognized as citizens by the government. 

Public goods available to them are limited. However, on the brighter side, Aadhaar—a national identification number assigned to residents of India—which tries to bridge the gap between effective public service delivery and citizenship, has upheld some success in this case.

Talking about educational benefits, the Massachusetts Transgender Equal Rights Bill was passed in Boston in 2011. It made for non-discrimination against transgender on the basis of gender identity for educational attainments. This law forced all the schools in the state of Massachusetts to practise recommendations concerning equal and fair treatment, rights and safety of transgender and gender non-conforming youths in K-12 schools. Such policies are needed in developing countries like India, Brazil, China where a huge number of LGBT population resides.

In other words, empowerment is needed to elevate transgenders from destitution and provide them a decent lifestyle with entitlements. One needs to understand that communities like LGBT command recognition of pluralistic expression in gender that encompasses identities that find space beyond the established binaries of gender. Space in economic, political, social and cultural rights are fundamental for strengthening their freedom. 

When the Yogyakarta Principles can be articulated in a non-LGBT friendly country like Indonesia, policymakers need to diagnose that systems are capable of producing results, which are optimal in terms of efficiency.

* This is the personal opinion of the columnist.