Urgency Required: Gay and Lesbian Rights are Human Rights is an admirable and timely project in the form of a book, through which the authors provide a comprehensive exploration of the state of LGBT rights worldwide. The book takes as it’s reference point the 2006 Yogyarkarta Principles, the premise of which is that gay and lesbian rights are human rights. The book is divided roughly into three sections: a historical perspective and exploration of concepts and terminology around same-sex intimacy and transgender; a discussion on the struggle for ‘Gay and Lesbian’ rights (LGBTIQ) in Africa, Asia and Latin America; and a section that explores the range of strategies for furthering gay and lesbian rights and equality.
allAfrica.com: Criminalising Homosexuality - a Threat to Human Rights
On[e] major criticism is that though the introduction has a section on terminology – ‘LGBT’ and ‘LGBTIQ’ ‘Queer’, the default acronym is ‘LGBT’, thereby excluding intersex people in a general sense. By not addressing issues of specific concern to intersex people, they are made doubly invisible. Again this is made more confusing by the title which refers only to ‘Gay and Lesbian’ rights. It highlights the need to for us to think more critically about language, and how particular words and terminology are exclusive.
