To What Extent Have the Rights of Transgender People Been Underrealized in Comparison to the Rights of Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, and Queer/Questioning People in the United Kingdom?

ABSTRACT

This article aims to consider how LGBT+ people have been excluded from human rights practice in the United Kingdom using data from a survey based on the Yogyakarta Principles (YPs). This article proceeds according to the following hypotheses: that LGBT+ rights in the UK have been underrealised, that transgender people have been particularly at risk of human rights abuses in the UK in comparison to other people included under the LGBT+ banner, and that transgender people will therefore have experienced a wider array of rights abuses more consistently. This article also hypothesizes that transgender people that inhabit multiple spaces of citizenship outside of heteronormativity will be at a further increased risk of human rights abuses. These hypotheses are based on a literature review that demonstrates the imbalanced and slow progression of LGBT+ rights that has, particularly in the UK, favored the progression of sexual rights over transgender rights and the maintenance of heteronormativity which allows for greater chances of abuses of the rights of LGBT+ people in the private and public arenas. These hypotheses will be considered through an analysis of the frequency of positive responses to survey questions that indicate a form of human rights abuse according to the YPs.

KEYWORDS.:

• Gay rights
• human rights
• lesbian rights
• LGBT
• LGBT rights
• right
• transgender

Note

Notes

1. LGBT+ will be used to refer to all people that can be incorporated under the LGBT banner, and throughout this article it will refer to not only lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender people, but also queer/questioning, pansexual, asexual, intersex, genderqueer non-binary people, and all other people that consider themselves to be represented by the banner.