LBGTQ Rights in the 21st Century

LBGTQ Rights

LBGTQ is a society that does not fall in either the male or female gender norms of the society. This is due to the embodiment of the characteristics related to both sexes that differentiate them explicitly but do not take into consideration if either one of them is missing or both are present. This paper aims at explaining the aspects mentioned about the LBGTQ rights and the contemporary issues that are still faced by this community despite the modernization of the society. The thoughts and standpoints would be thoroughly scrutinized in the light of authentic readings that would support explaining the phenomenon.

The contemporary issue that has taken the news by storm is Joe Biden’s decision to grant an educational environment free from discrimination of sex, even including sexual orientation or gender individuality (“Executive Order on Guaranteeing”). American society has been striving to set an example for the world as a society free of discrimination; however, certain societal norms are still considered conventional. The members of society are still not ready to normalize them. One of them is the acceptance of the LBGTQ community in the circle of normal life activities, such as education and accepting them as a normal being so that they could not face discrimination against their sexual orientation and enjoy the top citizen right, education, as normally as the other normal being of the same culture. Research has shown that transgender children have been verbally, emotionally, and physically disturbed by the school fellows due to their sexual orientation. Human Rights societies are now highlighting these issues since it has been posing direct and serious effects on their mental health (Watson and Miller). Certain issues such as sexual harassment, sexual violence, and discrimination against the particular orientation related to this community are on the stir since it is deemed that school environments would be distorted if the LBGTQ community is allowed into the normal school and college environments. The question remains about who has set the embodiment rules within the culture that defines the sexuality or gender of the person, what are the regulations based on which a certain gender should be allowed to enjoy the privileges as the others of the same society, the construction of gender and its fitting into the society’s mold on other factors like race and class, and the sexist oppression.

The intersection between Sex, Gender, Race, and Class

A newborn child is exclusively distinguished between two genders, either male or female since this division’s dichotomy has been observed for ages. There has been no acceptance in the society that could give place to other types of gender or sexuality where a third type could be acknowledged that have other gender norms (Institute of Medicine (US) Committee on Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, and Transgender Health Issues and Research Gaps and Opportunities). Any society’s social status and cultural norms pressure the transgender community to conform to the traditional roles defined by the specific genders to meet the roles and expectations.

LGBTQ people can be of various orientations such as heterosexual, homosexual, or bisexual, most commonly known as gay, lesbians, and transgender. Some individuals start seeing changes in their bodies at a younger age than those who become adults and then feel their orientations being changed. It has even been known that the members of this community experience different orientations and attractions over the years during their lifetime. The visibility in gender roles is obscured, and non-conformity to society’s set gender roles is twisted. Therefore, the public’s contemporary issues are highlighted that normal children might be at risk of the changing sexual orientations with the age of the LGBTQ community that could put their normal children on the verge of being a source of attraction for the transgender.

Additionally, the ethnic and racial backgrounds provide a different experience for the transgender since the gender-variant expressions would be different among non-Hispanics than the Whites. Even the same-sex attraction from a Black person might not be welcomed in the White community as the racial affirmation has been a debate that has not yet come to any conclusion despite the modernism of the society (Lorde). There is still discrimination based on race, and the acceptance of the LGBTQ community belonging to a specific community would be another hurdle that could take centuries to overrule.

Socioeconomic status and education levels play an integral part in the lives of the LGBTQ community since those individuals who experience changes in their bodies and sexual attraction during early childhood or adolescent years might not be able to complete their school, might not get highly paid jobs, and would not have access to suitable healthcare services (Institute of Medicine (US) Committee on Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, and Transgender Health Issues and Research Gaps and Opportunities). Joe Biden’s granting of this community a free of discrimination education environment might be a progressive leap to avoid the degrading situation experienced by transgender within the same American society that believes in the freedom of every individual.

Construction of Gender Shaped By Certain Norms and Conventions

More than distinguishing between the body and its materialization, gender is considered imposing certain cultural norms that have to be obeyed by the individuals (Felluga). The ideal construction of the body and the forced rules to be followed by the person has articulated sex accompanied by the gender realities (Butler). The forced reminders of the certain roles and conventions associated with the particular genders, more specifically on the two accepted genders, male and female, are the conceptualizations of the postmodern society. The humans themselves constructed the cultural and ideological norms without considering the Godly manifestation of the same human bodies capturing their souls for years. The social conventions for an appropriate human could include slim, thin, white-colored, and heterosexual individuals that are most likely to be accepted within society. The individual would be abiding by all the set rules of the cultural norms, disregarding the divine construction of the body itself and the changes taking place inside that would shape the individual’s tendency towards the other community people. Therefore, the subjectivity towards the gender roles should be redefined, and normative definitions of the sex and genders should be reconstituted, as Joe Biden has attempted to.

Body Becomes Battleground for Navigation of Gender Identity

Gender identity could be considered the person’s view of his or her gender and the associated roles that should be fulfilled. Due to the intense discrimination transgender face from society, gender identity remains a question mark for them, for which they start hating their bodies (Little). They struggle within their minds about how their body should behave and react to the community’s satisfaction that they live in to become suitable for them.

Sex and gender should not be confused as sex is represented by the sexual organs a child is born with, while gender is illustrated by our society’s characteristics, such as feminine clothes, walking and talking style, etc. Many LGBTQ members wish to change their bodily features to conform to gender identities for better socialization and adjustments. The alterations to physical being are the struggle within themselves to present themselves in specific ways by adopting certain hairstyles, behaviors, or other traits. Some also adhere to their original anatomy with their ways of self-expression; however, the diversity in the display of body remains a battleground for this community for finding their real origins of gender identity.

Bodies for Fitting into Certain Societal Mold and Its Respective Cultural Conventions

As mentioned above, the desire to change bodies to fit into the society and appear acceptable to them is the fitting struggle for LBGTQ members for compliance with particular cultural conventions. Taking the example of the movie Ma Vie En Rose, in which a 7-year old boy thinks he is a girl and likes to dress in one, his desire to change and the intention to comply with the girly characteristics. Apart from the sexual awareness the movie depicts, it is about the change in a child’s behaviors and demeanor in dressing and personality fantasized by his mind during his early childhood days.

Similarly, when Joe Biden endeavored to provide a non-discriminatory educational environment to the LGBTQ community, this struggle of altering bodies to fit in the society would be diminished. The community members would try to normalize just as the recent trend has been seen for normalizing healthy bodies rather than putting constant pressure on the females to appear slim despite hormonal complexities that enforce weight gain. Society has now started accepting normal bodies as part of normal societal norms and loving oneself as they are, leading to the need to accept the LGBTQ community in the same manner.

How Gender Is Made and Unmade

Numerous terms have been formulated to define sexual orientations and describe the boundaries for gender among society’s individuals. The subcultural terms like transman or transwoman, genderqueer, cisgender or cissexual, etc., are a part of the large culture in which the LGBTQ and normal gendered people live (Stryker). Also, it appears that these categories are now more visible as compared to a few decades ago since the age of the internet has exposed several concepts that were unknown to humankind before. The biological and environmental factors have played their part in describing the individual gendering seen in the spotlight at a higher rate. Though, it remains the crux of the debate that societal and cultural norms have massively shaped gender making and the set criteria for behaving in a certain way related to a specific gender. The seemingly social inequality and the emergence of LGBTQ as social minorities have exhaustively shaped the dimensions of gender and its creation since historic times.