“All Americans who believe in freedom, tolerance and human rights have a responsibility to oppose bigotry and prejudice based on sexual orientation.”
Coretta Scott King
Background:
People have long suffered because of their sexual orientation, but the increasing frequency and severity of this problem only recently gained the attention of the United Nations. Human rights violations based on sexual orientation and gender identity encompasses violence, cruelty, discrimination, and other acts of hatred based on real or perceived sexual orientation or gender identity. Sexual orientation is defined as ―each person‘s capacity for profound emotional, affectional and sexual attraction to, and intimate and sexual relations with, individuals of a different gender or of the same gender or of more than one gender. Gender identity refers to ―deeply felt internal and individual experience of gender, which may or may not correspond to the sex assigned at birth, including the personal sense of the body (which may involve, if freely chosen, modification of bodily appearance or function by medical, surgical or other means) and other expressions of gender, including dress, speech and mannerisms.
Violations of sexual minorities are manifested in two ways:
1) physical harm resulting from murder, kidnapping, sexual assault or other forms of violence and 2) unfair treatment, deprivation of liberty, and discrimination exercised on personal and institutional levels.
The aspect of physical harm is more frequently noted by the media, but many cases go unreported and without the attention that is needed to curb their prevalence. Special rapporteurs from the UN found previously unnoted examples that show the gravity of these issues. A period of violence specifically targeting members of lesbian, gay, bi-sexual, and transgender (LGBT) groups in Honduras resulted in the brutal killings of 21 people in 2010. One of these victims was