Homosexuality And The Threat Of Homophobia For Development

Homosexuality and the threat of homophobia for development

Summary

Following the economist Amartya Sen, human development is understood as the expansion of the freedoms of each individual, so the means available in each society must be oriented in a way that increase and benefit those real freedoms of human beings of human beings. However, there are currently seventy United Nations member countries where same -sex relationships are condemned. In six of them the death penalty applies and in five others it is contemplated in the law. This criminalization and privatization of the freedoms of homosexuals drags the collective into various structural inequalities that harm their abilities, their physical and moral integrity, their life and, in addition, they have an impact on the human development of the country in question. This work exposes how homosexuality criminalization influence.

Introduction

Globally it has predominated – and continues to do so – heterosexuality about the rest of orientations, causing rejection and trends of hate towards others. In the third world countries, especially in India in recent years, LGTBI people are cohifted so that they cannot express their sexual interests without fear, without being judged or attacked physically and morally. They are tried to strip their identity by not being considered the most appropriate in the eyes of society. The unequal treatment of the members of the group deprives them of fundamental freedoms and rights, denying practically their status as human beings and what corresponds to it, such as dignity.

If we attend to Amartya Sen we enter the idea of the construction of social identity (Sen, 2000). The Nobel Prize explains that this construction includes a facet of discovery by the individual and another of choice linked to a rational and free act. But when the freedom of the human being is restricted, it is impossible to identify and express that social identity, which in this case corresponds to sexuality. For Sen, human development is "a process of expansion of real freedoms enjoyed by individuals" (Sen, 2000), so that limitations in freedom to recognize certain sexual orientations negatively influence.

This threat to development is exposed if we look at some of the countries where homosexuality is strongly condemned or the death penalty is (Ilga, 2019) and we contemplate the position they occupy in the United Nations Human Development Index. We find, for example, Mauritania in 159, Sudan in 187, Guyana in 125 or Myanmar occupying 148 in the ranking (United Nations, 2017). Almost all of the territories that do not protect the rights of homosexuals or attempt against their life are located at the lowest of the UN scale.

In addition, the greatest amount of deaths a year due to diseases such as HIV affects homosexuals living countries that condemn their condition (CIA World Factbook, 2017). Homophobic stigmatization and laws that criminalize these types of relationship. Testimonies of men and women who are denied medical assistance for their sexual practices are collected in a study supervised by the Gay International Commission of Human Rights (Johnson, 2007).

We find other studies such as that in Senegal the HIV rate in the total population does not reach one percent, but exceeds 21 percent among homosexuals. Or facts as alarming as the death of a young man from Kenya after contracting an anal infection by maintaining relationships with another man and being expelled from the medical center without receiving the corresponding attention. Being HIV one of the millennium development objectives (United Nations, 2000) to advance human development, it is vitally important to address the treatment given to this minority by some governments.

In the same way as in health, there are other areas where countless attacks against the rights of the members of the LGTBI collective occur, some of them being murder, aggressions, violations, arbitrary detentions, discrimination in education or employment,Difficulty accessing justice, among others (Nathwani, 2015).

Despite the data that are being collected on the situation of the collective, it will not be until the HIV epidemic begins when the UN properly contemplates the situation of LGBTI people. Although they began focusing on the problem of this disease, over time the interest in promoting human rights appears.

The United Nations Development Program begins in 2015 to include sexual minorities in development discourse. A consultation process will begin to create a LGBTI inclusion index, which will evaluate the social, economic and legal deprivations of people with various sexual orientations in the world. It is the first time that human development is intended to be measured without exclusion of groups, to a worldwide. Five axes are agreed to measure inclusion: economic well -being, civic and political participation, personal security, health and education (UNDP, 2015).

In third world countries where minority exclusion is an alarming fact, the maintenance of real poverty persists. We must understand this concept as a type of poverty that beyond risk factors, which may or may not be, mostly contemplates the social conditions of people (sexual orientation, race, disability …) and to what extent they make their lives difficult (Sanzo, 2018). The LGTBI collective suffers from this real poverty, which becomes justified by the law itself and society, encompassed under a deeply religious moral culture and principles.

The discriminatory situation regarding the collective is an obvious lock for world human development that must be corrected. Only with attending some of the data and situations exposed, the backwardness of homophobia for human freedoms and the development of a country is observed. This article illustrates the relationship of Sen’s freedom with respect to the LGTBI collective, how homophobia affects human development and what solution can occur to this situation.

• Human freedom as a means for development

The discussion about what freedom is is broad and diverse throughout history, as well as what of development means. Amartya Sen, clearly inspired by John Rawls, understands freedom as "the final objective of development" and development as "a process of expansion of real freedoms enjoyed by individuals" (Sen, 2000). With this definition, Sen gives both negative and positive sense to the notion.

Thus, the development of nations becomes entirely in a human process that advances according to the development of its members. How much greater freedom has an individual, of greater capacities and faculties will have to benefit his life and, consequently, the development. If we accept this nobel conception, we must consider the free citizen as a change agent in the world.

The author proposes that the development be measured also taking into account the freedoms enjoyed by a country, since these are the ultimate goal of the development itself. It is evident that the GDP index, to cite one of the factors taken to measure human development, cannot be ignored;But obviate freedoms being the environment to obtain fundamental rights or increase capacities guaranteeing a decent and prosperous society is a mistake. Wealth and goods do not guarantee the disappearance of workplace or sexual harassment, homophobia or executions to people from the collective. Sen proposes, in view of this, that the concept of poverty not only collects the lack of income and goods, but also the absence of the possibility of being free (Sen, 2000).

Numerous studies have been carried out on the impact caused by discrimination on LGTBI people in development. In one in charge of the DRA. Badgett directed by the World Bank, among other data, was calculated that the economic cost of homophobia for the gross domestic product in India reached between a 0.2 percent and 1.7 percent. It was also stipulated that the income of 65 percent of openly homosexual men in Tamil Nadu does not reach 1.50 dollars a day due to the difficulties found in society (Badgett, 2014).

The case of India applies to many other countries where homosexuality is condemned (Ilga, 2019). Although most of those who appear on the list are located in catastrophic positions in the human development index, there is a slow and progressive descent while hardening or establishing new homophobic laws.

These laws condemn individuals to economic poverty and limits the use of their capacities and the possibility of fully enjoying them (laws against marriage of same sex, denial of adopting, ECT.). More and more studies and events show that LGBTI people have more educational obstacles, register higher unemployment rates, and suffer the lack of access to housing, health and financial services, appropriate financial services. Moreover, it is estimated that LGTBI people make up about 40 percent of the poorest world population (World Bank, 2015). With this exclusion, development cannot be conceived if we follow the SEN line, where it is the members of a society who make it possible to occur. If we submit to a large part of the population due to their sexual condition, the paradigm that supports human development becomes poor, since the eradication of homophobia forms would cause a positive impact on efficiency, productivity, employment, and education and educationglobal.

However, this context is alarming for something more. In recent decades, with the introduction of laws that protected the collective or recognized their own rights, drastically increased the concern of how this discrimination affected the world in economic terms, something that, in my opinion, is terribly frivolous.

Promote the equality and development of LGTBI people must be a mainly human, dignity;But in a capitalist system the principle of utilitarian happiness predominates almost for any matter. The current world and its components are measured around economic figures, causing constant questions such as what costs does sexual exclusion have? What benefits would provide the equality of women? What are the global consequences of homophobia? Possible answers must most present an impact on the economy so that issues are taken seriously-as with the question of animal rights, for example-, since everything is governed by a principle of globalization and benefitmonetary. We are turning dignity, respect and their own rights into a currency. Sen defended that freedom is a means and a constitutive element development, but its importance does not have to be demonstrated by its economic influence, as it has been doing for years.

In one of the most prestigious studies, directed by The Williams Institute, the focus is placed on the fact that countries with a broader letter of rights for LGBTI people obtain greater per capita income and higher levels of well -being, increasing theGross Internal Producer considerably. (Badgett, 2014). It is demonstrated that the inclusion of the group will favor the economy, this being the main argument to grant them rights. The error lies in which it seems to be ignored or, at least, to leave in the background that they deserve a protection of their freedoms because they are human beings, falling the weight to the global economic benefit.

So, freedom is guarantor for the development of people, and these are, in turn, for economic development. Starting from this, the second point, exposed with the aforementioned studies, is that countries with greater rights and protections for the collective and other minorities have better economic levels. We affirm, then, that there is an undeniable relationship between the development of a territory and the rights of its citizens. We can also not forget that reducing the need for these rights and their usefulness to the economic factor reminds of a depersonalization of individuals, considered numbers.

Next, it is important to point out the costs of homophobia for countries and for humans, the cultural factor being very important.

• Homophobia: What is the real problem?

The term was first used in the seventies, by the hand of psychologist George Weinberg, but it was not until the end of the eighties when the term became popular and appeared in European dictionaries.

With the notion raised by French Didier Eribon (Tin, 2008) we understand that homophobia is a homophobic continuum that perpetrates an unequal social order between homosexuals and heterosexual. This division between the orientations has caused the continuous attacks that we have mentioned during the article. Being the dominant part the heterosexual and submissive the homosexual, it is intended to justify the contempt of the latter.

One of the most recent and sounded cases of homophobia was that of India. Sen joined a group of philosophers, economists and politicians in 2006 with renowned figures such as Vikram Seth, Anbumani Ramadadss or Oscar Fernandes, which demanded that the government of India cancel article 377 of the Criminal Code of 1861, which will not happen until September2018 (FELGTB, 2018). This article indicates: “377. Crimes against nature: the one who voluntarily has carnal contacts against the order of nature with any man, woman or animal, will be punished with imprisonment for life, or with prison penalty for a period that can extend to ten years,In addition to a fine susceptible. Explanation: penetration is sufficient to establish the necessary carnal contact for the crime described in this article ”(Supreme Court of India, 2018).

In response, Sen is written together with the rest of the other most respected Indian expertThe improvement of human freedoms in terms of which the progress of human civilization can be judged ”(Sen, 2006).

Criminalize homosexuality is to attempt freedom and human rights. We return to the utilitarian point of the principle of happiness where homosexuals, being a minority, are not correctly protected. In the judicial case, it was alleged that tradition and religion did not approve the relations between people of the same sex, an argument of great force in the case of India. Given this, it is proposed to promote a democracy with force to question the prejudices and discriminatory measures that dictate the conventions and customs of a country that privatize freedoms and the possibility of development. However, it is curious to point out how this hatred and rejection, in addition to assuming a threat to life, has allowed to financially boost India. They are the two sides of homophobia.

With Badgett’s aforementioned report, we saw how this social and work exclusion leads to high unemployment rates, lower business productivity or low income, among others, becoming potential data that increases poverty and triggering macroeconomic problems for the countries they cultivateThese conditions. It was proposed to solve the situation to increase social aid and health;But, however, the proposal was rejected due to the high cost it would be, to which it was impossible to face it.

Badgett raised that possibility and pointed out in his study what would happen if the inclusion of the group was carried out. Estimated that if the 3.8 percent of work force was carried by the collective, India would lose 7.7 billion dollars of its gross domestic product (Badgett, 2014). It contrasts how India has become a country with an emerging economy since 2007 (United Nations, 2017) by progressively excluding LGTBI people. Highlighting this fact we are not including a point in favor of homophobia, but affecting how it, at the purely economic level, favors the country.

This is due, as in the case of article 377 mentioned above, to the religious culture that is strongly rooted. The problem of culture reappears, whose principles and traits perpetuate social injustice and aggressively influence the mentality of the inhabitants (Halbfass, 1990).

The UN, once the deadline was finished in 2015 to meet the 8 Millennium objectives, opened the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development. Among the new proposed objectives, it was negotiated to include the problem of sexual orientation and gender identity to try to eradicate as much as possible discrimination;But, finally, it was not included in the program because of the opposition of countries that shared cultures with strong religious character.

Now, would it be more favored with a complete inclusion and the corresponding rights? It is assumed that more rights more development, but this only occurs in countries with certain sociocultural factors (Halbfass, 1990). Given the culture so rooting religion and with such "backward" moral principles with respect to the rest of the world, it is unfeasible that eliminating or trying to reduce generalized homophobia in India has positive consequences in the term of economic development. Again, as with the case of article 377, the real problem lies in the country’s culture. It is necessary to modify the cultural basis to be able to correctly implement the measures that allow progress in the development of the country. If you do not act on the underlying problem, which has a favorable evolution becomes something totally opposite.

The authentic problem does not turn out to be homophobia, since we have the appropriate measures to begin to eradicate it, but the cultures that consecrate homosexual discrimination. It is an almost completely cultural homophobia, where sometimes you are not even aware of it. This homophobia ends up evolving to an "institutionalized homophobia" (Cornejo, 2012) carried out by state institutions and civil society without unleashing alarms or questions in the population. This culture of homophobia we have been talking about and is present in the third world countries dates back to the cultural production carried out by the Judeo -Christian west and intensified with the strong influence of the Catholic Church (Cornejo, 2012).

We admit that there is a sociocultural component that, in addition to presenting itself as one of the causes, adopts the role of maintaining and justifying homophobia that continues to exist in the 21st century 21st century.

Conclusions

If we want to achieve the human and economic development that seems almost unattainable for the role assigned to the collective in almost a hundred countries, it will be necessary to face the homophobia problem from within;this is, attending to its origin factors and continuation in society. Only by changing the generalized social mentality can be carried out effective measures that do not become against the original purpose. In order to combat and eliminate homophobia, actions that promote a change of the cultural pattern must be carried out. Modifying parameters at a social and cultural scale would mean that the justification to which homophobia will lose its reason for being.

LGTBI people living in countries whose laws do not protect them properly because of "cultural homophobia" for centuries have been limited their opportunities to develop and be able to contribute to economic growth because, as we have seen, the development of individuals and theeconomic development are intimately united.

But, without lowering importance to the focus on economic benefits and costs, we must meet this discrimination with a look away from pure statistics and macroeconomic data. We must not lose sight of the perspective adopted by a development based on human freedom, where a homosexual person can be seen as an agent capable of making himself with the media at his reach. The State and society must ensure that this is so not restricting its rights and abilities, allowing it to be the purpose of the development of himself and his freedoms.

Therefore, the recent development that is manifested in India is not viable. Although the repression of the group is currently economic benefits, its exclusive paradigm is poor and unfair and, over time, it will become unsustainable. And it is that development does not equals well -being or a fair society with fundamental freedoms and rights.

The possession of wealth and goods in a country is not a guarantee that there are no workplace or sexual harassment, homophobia, racism, bullying in schools, and other types of attacks against individuals that negatively affect society and,,therefore, to development. In view of this, regarding the concept of poverty, Sen proposes to attend to the Human Development Index and the impossibility of achieving a minimum of vital realization by being a private subject of the basic abilities, rights and means to do so (Ferullo, 2006).

Sen believes that development must be measured also attending to the freedoms of a country, since it cannot be limited only to a number (Sen, 2010). Factors such as GDP index, for example, should not be ignored;But omitting the role of human freedoms being the environment to achieve the rights that characterize a prosperous society is a terrible error that must be reviewed as soon as possible, because it does not really allow us to contemplate poverty or the development of a country.

To conclude, we can refer to Ferullo’s words about Sen’s analysis: “human lives can be impoverished in many ways (…) clear show of the greatest challenge facing the economy as social science as a social science. This challenge points to the need for current economic thinking of abandoning its commitment to a purely instrumental rationality, to apply reason also in the debate of the aims that a good economy should collectively pursue ”(Ferullo, 2006).

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