Thirty-two years after the World Health Organisation declared homosexuality a disease on 17 May 1990, there is no denying the progress made in equality and against discrimination based on sexual orientation and identity.
However, we must be concerned about the alarming increase in cases of physical and verbal aggression towards LGTBIQ+ people of any age or place of origin – with special reference to the Transgender Community and Non-Binary People – and call on all Administrations and public or private entities to contribute to the fight against all forms of discrimination in any area of public, private and social life.
Currently, in 70 countries, more than a third of the world’s countries, homosexuality is still a crime. In 2 countries it is de facto illegal, in 30 countries it carries a prison sentence of up to 8 years, in 27 countries it is punishable by life imprisonment and in 11 countries it is punishable by the death penalty, which is effectively applied by 5 countries. Moreover, according to data from the Organisation for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE), sexual orientation and gender identity is the second most common cause of hate crime.
A coordinated commitment between the different Public Administrations, the Security Forces and Corps and Representatives of Civil Society is essential to ensure the full guarantee in the exercise of the basic and inalienable rights of all people regardless of their sexual orientation and identity. At the same time, it is equally essential to continue to stress the need for a cross-cutting approach in all areas and especially in the fields of Education, Health and Employment where effective and urgent measures are still needed to avoid any risk of discriminatory or violent behaviour.
We must also pay special attention to people from the LGTBIQ+ Collective with some form of fundamental, sensory and intellectual diversity; to the elderly; to migrants and refugees; and to people with multi-ethnic and multicultural diversity who are practically invisible from within the Collective itself and who need special protection to guarantee the exercise of their most basic rights.
Likewise, we have to show our most energetic rejection towards those ideological currents and unscientific theories that question, trivialise and deny the rights of LGTBIQ+ People and the different discriminatory realities that affect them on a daily basis, completely attacking their inviolable human dignity. In particular, we must condemn the so-called «conversion therapies», forced sterilisations and surgical interventions, especially on intersex minors, as they are absolutely contrary to human dignity, to the free development of the personality and, consequently, totally inadmissible in an advanced democracy.
We must commit ourselves as a society and continue to work for the dignity and rights of all people. Only in this way will we be able to build a society based on respect for the human rights of every person and free from all kinds of violence, hatred and discrimination.
Because the right to be, to feel and to love are also inalienable rights.
Because LGTBIQ+ rights ARE HUMAN RIGHTS!
LA ERA DE LOS DERECHOS HUMANOS 