Human Rights Education Associates

International Day Against Homophobia and Transphobia

Today is the International Day Against Homophobia and Transphobia. On this day in 1990, the World Health Organization (WHO) removed homosexuality from its list of mental illnesses. Like racism, xenophobia or anti-semitism, homophobia and transphobia are forms of discrimination. They include the negative attitudes that can lead to rejection and to direct or indirect discrimination towards gay men, lesbians, bisexual, transsexual or transgendered people, or toward anyone whose physical appearance or behaviour does not fit masculine or feminine stereotypes.

While the Universal Declaration of Human Rights and other international instruments prohibit discrimination, over 75 countries currently have sodomy laws or other legal provisions criminalising homosexuality. Apart from the inherent violation of criminalising sexual conduct, these laws empower police and other authorities to abuse, harass, extort, imprison and even execute people whose sexual orientation, gender identity or expression differs from dominant norms.