Many people know that sexual orientation minorities are discriminated against, but could you recognize this prejudice if it happened to you or someone you know?
The LGBTQ community refers to a group of people who identify themselves as non-heterosexual orientation. This includes lesbians, gays, bisexuals, transgenders, and questioning. These individuals undergo many forms of discrimination that can vary between different sexual orientations. Although heterosexuals can be discriminated against as well, it is much more common for sexual minorities to be the victims of prejudice. One form of discrimination is at the interpersonal level. This discrimination occurs from one individual or small group against another individual or small group. One common example of interpersonal sexual orientation discrimination would be not hiring someone because of their sexual orientation. Discrimination can also occur at the organizational level,which
usually occurs when an organization decides to treat one sexual orientation
group differently from others. These can
be acts derived from formal OR informal rules sanctioned by the company. Another form of discrimination occurs on a public macro-level, when laws exclude sexual minorities from rights or privileges given to heterosexuals. The image below is a depiction of states that ban discrimination based on sexual orientation. It is very clear that there are many gaps in the protection of all people's rights!
In addition to separate levels of discrimination, LGBTQ victims can experience multiple levels of victimization. First, there is the primary victimization, which is the actual experience of an anti-gay hate crime. Then there is secondary victimization, which can occur due to the exposure of the person's sexual orientation. An example of this could be a gay man losing his job because he was the victim of a hate crime which exposed his sexual orientation to his job. Many government policies do not consider secondary victimization when creating laws against anti-gay hate crimes. Policies need to be revised to include protection from secondary victimization as well!
References:
References:
Image from: Religious Tolerance, http://www.religioustolerance.org/homstatelaw.htm
Grollman, E. A. (2011). What is Sexual Orientation Discrimination. Kinsey Confidential.
http://kinseyconfidential.org/sexual-orientation-discrimination-2/
Herek, Gregory. (2012). Bibliography- Selected Abstracts. Rainbow. http://psychology.ucdavis.edu/faculty_sites/rainbow/HTML/bibabs.html
Herek, Gregory. (2012). Bibliography- Selected Abstracts. Rainbow. http://psychology.ucdavis.edu/faculty_sites/rainbow/HTML/bibabs.html
I think it is important to focus on the actual interpersonal level, because it seems those people are the most effected. The interpersonal level when talking about this how much of hatred or discrimination is actual focused on this? Also someone a lady that was representing a school that she invest money in. This church is called Eastern Mennonite University( idk if you have ever heard of it ?) Anyway, she was saying that because it is a really Christian based school and a lot of the people that invest the money are actually very religious people. She was saying that she doesn't think that it is right to hire homosexuals because it is against their religion and they school is founded on their religious morals. So if this makes sense I was wondering if this is considered discrimination? Or how would you explain this situation? I wasn't really sure, because I don't know to much about the topic.
ReplyDeleteReading your post about interpersonal discrimination about organizations being prejudice towards certain sexual orientations reminded me of the Boy Scouts controversy that occurred a few months ago. Boy Scouts, which is historically known to be a very conservative organization, who did not address sexual orientation, finally allowed openly gay boys to be part of the program for the first time a year or so ago. There is also the Chick-fil-A controversy, when this very American company CEO publicly announced that they were against gay rights.
ReplyDeleteKatie, I like how you brought up the importance of the interpersonal level. It is sadly so common, and is especially important when focusing on a community group such as a college campus. On the issue with the Eastern Mennonite University, that is definitely discrimination. Many prejudices stemming from religion cause discrimination on the organizational level, as this situation does.
ReplyDeleteSo following off of your comment is this still illegal or is this legal. I understand that this is hate crime and a clear form of discrimination, but does that mean their is justice for those who commit those crimes? Or is it because it is declared and ran under a religious banner that they are able to practice this form of discrimination with out it actually being considered illegal or discrimination in general?
DeleteThis post reminds me of what happened in France last year. I was studying abroad in Paris last spring semester during the period that the French president François Hollande was legalizing gay marriage. He did this under the campaign “Le mariage pour tous!” which literally translates to “Marriage for all.” This wording was a poor choice as the public that was not fond of this new law argued that it meant anyone can marry including pedophiles with children and have many wives/husbands, though this is not what it implied at all. The French were not really against gay marriage per say but the fact that legalizing gay marriage meant that gay couples could adopt of apply in-vetro methods to have children. Because of this one million French came to Paris to protest against it which stopped most metro lines. These protestors were afraid that allowing gay couples to have children would mean that they would influence children to become homosexual themselves. In my opinion, this shows a perfect example of sexual prejudice.
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