Homophobic and Transphobic Violence Research Paper

Picture this, your a trans person and you've just come out to your parents in the hopes for acceptance, but instead you're told to leave your own home and never return. This sounds like it's impossible for some the non-LGBT, and they might think “why all the drama over not being their assigned gender? They must be over reacting and exaggerating" Well I'm not, this is happening all over the world, and often. In fact this isn't a random made up example, this actually happened. My friend Tamron, he's a 17-year-old trans male, and he's currently homeless. I'm Matthew, an LGBT person, I'm transgender and gay. I am here before you, the UN, to talk about the inexcusable homophobia and transphobia around the globe. These are quite sensitive topics due to the fact that such a large population of my community has to deal with it on such a casual basis and is then told it's their fault for coming out in the first place. The discrimination must come to an end.

What is transphobia? Transphobia is the fear, hatred, disbelief, or mistrust of people who are transgender, thought to be transgender, or whose gender expression doesn’t conform to traditional gender roles.

What is homophobia? The dislike of or prejudice against gay people and the LGBT. This includes homosexuals, males attracted to males, lesbians, women attracted to women, bisexuals anyone attracted to two genders, pansexual, people not attracted to gender, and many more.

There are many things that may not come off as harmful, but are. Dead naming and misgendering two large issues that trans people like myself have to face on a daily basis. Even if I tell a group of people that I go by Matthew, and he/they pronouns, my dead name still be thrown around as if playing hot potato. If people deadname and are aware of it, some may see them as a transphobe. When being dead named and misgendered myself and other trans people in the same situation feel invalid and as though their transition isn't supported. However, If a friend of yours tells you not to use their preferred names and pronouns in public, Having people make jokes of our identities and degrade us is violation of our human right against discrimination. Us as a country need to start putting in more effort to refer to people by their names and gender them as requested, it's basic respect. Even if you struggle, the effort means the world to us.

Now, having be called by the incorrect name doesn't sound extremely harmful to some cisgendered people, even though it is. However, as you should know, discrimination reaches much further lengths than dead naming. Did you know that LGBT people are nearly four times more likely than non-LGBT people to experience violent victimization, including rape, sexual assault, and aggravated or simple assault?  LGBT people experienced 71.1 victimizations per 1,000 people, compared to 19.2 victimizations per 1,000 people for non-LGBT people. That's 51.9 more people are being traumatized and possibly having their lives ruined within the LGBT in comparison to the not. Not only is this injustice a violation of our right against discrimination, but also our right against violence, Our right to protection from torture and cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment. We must start inducing harsher punishment for such crimes and not allow the attacker to get away with it.

Furthermore, people don't even know what they're causing when they hate crime the LGBT, individual people might say something that they don't see as a big deal to a queer person, something like “Why are you trying so hard to be different, you're just an attention seeker” but they won't know that the person they just said that to has already had multiple other people to tell them similar things, has lost friends, has been bullied and has been told to kill themselves. Don't deny the fact that gay and trans people get told that, I have been an openly queer person at Marsden for over a year, I have been openly trans for almost a year, and I've been told to kill myself more than a dozen times, I've been told I don't deserve to live, I've been told the world doesn't have room for fag like me. It takes a toll. It hurts. I've been told that people will always have their opinions and that I should ignore them. But How do any of us ignore this stuff if it's shoved in our faces everywhere we go. Homophobia and transphobia share a lot of outcomes, and one of those outcomes, is suicide. 25.6% of LGBTQIA+ young people aged 16 to 17 had attempted suicide in their lifetime. 48.1% of

transgender and gender diverse people aged 14 to 25 reported that they had attempted suicide in their lifetime, THAT'S ALMOST HALF. May I add, this is in Australia alone, think about how it must be for those in less accepting countries. People treating us like trash is a violation of safety, our right against discrimination, our right against degrading treatment, and it violates our right to live. You may think of it as those people taking their OWN lives, I think its murder. To treat people so maliciously is inhumane by nature. Respect isn't that hard.

Why do you view us like this, like an issue that we need to overcome? It's not us that's making your life hard to live, it's not like we're forcing you to say slurs, we merely tell you not to, we ask for the same respect that everyone else gets. We don't scream in your faces asking for attention and to be the spotlight of the media, we just want an OUNCE of representation, and when we get it, it's negative. If you give us the amount respect that anyone deserves, I thank you. If you view us as below you, be better. But for both of these types of people, and all people. There's always a little more you can do to make us feel valid, whether it be small or large. Like wearing welcoming pins and have friendly stickers, join groups, sign petitions, speak out, and be supportive, but don't make assumptions. I'm not asking for the world to rid of everything negative and anti-gay, but I'm asking for us to try. We aren't weak, we aren't an issue, and we deserve respect. Thank you for your time.