Intersectionality and the CRPD: an analysis of the CRPD committee’s discourse and civil society advocacy at the intersections of disability and LGBTI

ABSTRACT

The United Nation (‘UN’) Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities (‘CRPD’ or ‘Convention’), while addressing some intersectionalities, does not explicitly mention sexual orientation, gender identity and expression, and sex characteristics (SOGIESC). However, the practice of the Committee on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities (‘CteeRPD’ or ‘Committee’) has developed significantly over the past years to include the intersections of disability and SOGIESC into the discourse. This paper examines these developments from a queer intersectional perspective based on the document analysis. We analysed a range of documents adopted by the Committee itself, as well as shadow reports submitted to the CteeRPD by civil society, to map the challenges existing at the intersections of disability and SOGIESC. The results of the analysis demonstrate a quantitative shift in the CRPD intersectional discourse, but also qualitative changes in the positioning of the subject – the one living on the intersections of disability and SOGIESC, related structural powers and hierarchies. Based on the analysis, we use a quadruple framework to show how this subject is defined, described, protected and embraced by the CteeRPD, what concrete features of this positioning has been developed already, what gaps still exist and how they can be addressed.

KEYWORDS:

• CRPD
• disability rights
• SOGIESC
• LGBTI
• intersectionality

Acknowledgments

The authors thank the peer reviewers and the special issue editors for their invaluable feedback. The authors are also grateful to Taos Myers for her diligent proofreading of this article.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Notes

1 In this article, we mainly refer to LGBTI persons. Some primary sources such as documents of the CteeRPD or alternative reports refer to slightly different abbreviations, e.g. ‘LGBTIQ’ (lesbian, gay, bisexual, trans, intersex and queer), ‘LGBT+’ (lesbian, gay, bisexual, trans and others), ‘LGB2TTIQQ’ (lesbian, gay, bisexual, two-spirit, transsexual, transgendered, queer and questioning). In such cases, we adopt the terminology from the primary sources.

2 The Committee’s LOI, LOIPR and COs are structured by themes and articles, and by paragraphs. In this study, a cluster refers to a thematic paragraph (LOI, LOIPR or COs) or two interconnected paragraphs (COs).

3 See note 2.

4 See also references to sexual orientation, gender identity and intersex in the General comment No. 7 (CteeRPD, 2018f, paras. 16, 50, 94).

5 Sexual orientation was also mentioned in the context of intersectional discrimination experienced by persons with disabilities in the General comment No. 4 (CteeRPD, 2016h, para. 13).

6 On feminist and queer critique of the vulnerability focus in international human rights law and the need to create alternative frameworks see, e.g. Otto, 2014.

7 There were no explicit references to article 31 of the CRPD in the Committee’s SOGIESC clusters. Outside of article 31, only Burkina Faso was asked to specifically provide statistics on exploitation, violence and abuse against persons with disabilities disaggregated by sexual orientation (CteeRPD, 2020a, para. 14).

8 Because of the COVID-19 pandemic, there were no COs adopted by the Committee in 2020, and the number of LOIs and LOIPRs was lower than in previous years. Same goes for alternative reports by CSOs.

Additional information

Funding

The author(s) reported there is no funding associated with the work featured in this article.