Opinion
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Vitit Muntarbhorn

June 1, 2017 (C-Fam) — The first report of Vitit Muntarbhorn, the new UN independent expert on lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender issues, goes well beyond merely preventing violence. The report targets children, promotes homosexual marriage, denigrates traditional culture and religion and even interference in the internal affairs of sovereign states. The report calls for all this by falsifying UN agreements and undermining the international law the UN system purports to defend.

The report says it is necessary to “start young” with children because violence and discrimination against individuals who identify as lesbian, gay, bisexual, or transgender (LGBT) is “personal/personalized, family-based, community-influenced and systemic.”

The report cites a “litany of abuses covering all parts of the globe” and that victims are “revictimized an infinite number of times.” Like previous reports from the UN human rights office, however, it does not cite verifiable statistical data. Instead, it rests on anecdotal evidence, including secret complaints the UN system receives against certain states.

The report says, “Due respect for sexual orientation and gender identity” is entrenched in “an array” of human rights instruments, and that LGBT rights are evidenced by the “wide range of international human rights treaties that are in force, international human rights bodies and procedures.”

In fact, no UN human rights treaty includes special protections for homosexual conduct or transgender change either explicitly or implicitly. Ironically, the report cites the Arab Charter of Human Rights as supportive of LGBT rights, even though homosexual acts remain criminal in all Arab states.

The expert admits that “sexual orientation and gender identity” is not understood, and says “people are confused by the terms ‘transgender man/trans man’ and ‘transgender woman/trans woman.’” The terms are disputed by medical and legal experts and have never been defined in the UN context.

The report overlooks the fact that only a fraction of countries promote LGBT issues at the United Nations, and that the majority of recommendations on this topic are flatly rejected.

The report says LGBT rights are part of the new UN Sustainable Development Goals, even though the goals were only adopted after any phrase that might hint at homosexual rights was deleted. The 54-nation African Group made an explicit reservation to exclude LGBT rights.

The report praises countries for legislatively or judicially imposing homosexual marriage on their citizenry. It praises UN agencies and international bodies which attempt to impose new obligations on nations without their consent.

The report lists six priority areas for the work of the expert: decriminalization of sodomy, enactment of special measures (affirmative action) for individuals who identify as LGBT, legal recognition of gender identity and prohibiting any surgical intervention to correct genital malformations in children, prohibiting any kind of therapy to help individuals overcome or cope with unwanted same-sex attraction and providing children and adults who suffer from gender dysphoria with hormones and surgery, sociocultural inclusion through promotion of cultures and religions that are on board with the LGBT agenda, and promotion of social acceptance of homosexuality in education beginning with anti-bullying programs and a “reappraisal” of national curricula and materials to remove anything that might be construed as a LGBT stereotype.

The report further says the UN agencies and country teams should “integrate sexual orientation and gender identity issues into programming and practices” as a matter of course, and their presence “bolstered” especially in countries that do not accept the entire LGBT agenda.

Reprinted with permission from the Center for Family & Human Rights.