Homophobia And Transphobia In The U.S., Botswana And Brazil
Homophobia is the fear, hatred, discomfort with, or mistrust of people who are lesbian, gay, or bisexual. Homophobia can take a wide scope of structures, including adversarial outlooks and feelings about, repulsiveness for, or prejudice against bisexual, lesbian, and gay people. It's normally arranged in irrational fear and misunderstanding. A couple of individuals' homophobia may be built up in conservative religious beliefs. The U.S., Botswana and Brazil have discriminated against homosexuals in their own ways, it has been more violent in some places than others but their Presidents have all expressed their homophobic views on the matters and don’t intend to change them.
In Mississippi, and many similar states, the social cause or diagnosis of homophobia is famed in religion. A law was reversed in 2017 that said, “doctors, lawyers, and adoption agencies, among others, are now licensed to discriminate on the basis of sexual and gender identity.” In February of that same year, the Trump Administration cancelled safeguard enabling transgender students to utilize their preferred bathrooms, and a few months later in July, tweeted out a ban on transgender service members. This creates a hole in anti-discriminatory laws that holds the LGBTQ community back and gives businesses the chance to discriminate because the government says so.
Minimizing the use of derogatory terms such as “that is gay”, homo, faggot, etc. can help homophobia decrease and be part of the prognosis for homophobia in the U.S. The government made a big step when they legalized same sex marriage, actually decreasing the amount of homophobia expressed towards homosexuals since 2015. If we keep using the government to help the LGBTQ+ community get the rights they deserve it will be easier to try to change the opinions of the public.
The Trump Administration uses family and religion to try and persuade the nation that homosexuals are poisoning the future for our kids. To create a panic within most of the public, who supports his views, they center homosexuality as a threat to children and revert protection from transgender and homosexual people in saying the children need protection from the ideas of the LGBTQ+ community. This issue then produces two different problems within itself, many people say that homosexuals are a problem for our children and they are tainting their futures, but others refute saying that opinions like that constitute homophobia and are backtracking society in believing that, which is already a big problem for many homosexuals in the U.S. This might have given readers a perspective on Trump and have them contradict when he says he supports gay rights, yet can’t help but be homophobic when the time comes.
Since the early 1990s, the motivational frame of homosexuality in Botswana was considered ‘unAfrican’. Letlhogonolo Mokgoroane, author of, “Homosexuality is not ‘unAfrican’, explains that “the idea of criminalizing LGBTQIA+ frames people with these identities as social pariahs; it fuels homophobia, transphobia and queerphobia, as well as hate crimes against them.” Like Trump, in the U.S. homosexual families are contrary to the American heterosexual family. In itself, the criminalization of homosexuality criminalizes a part of society.
Being homosexual in Africa is very sad for most, with a report released earlier this year in 2019, from the International Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Trans and Intersex Association (ILGA), relaying that “of 54 African countries, at least 31 have enacted laws making it illegal to have gay sex.” An individual discovered violating the Botswana Penal Code could have spent as long as five years in jail. Upholding the criminalization of homosexuality has resulted in the marking of homosexuals as criminals and increased the amount of human rights violations against the LGBTQ+ community, homophobia.
In the New Frame article, “Homosexuality is not unAfrican”, Mokgoroane gives the names of some claims-makers who frame homosexuality as ‘unAfrican’. Robert Mugabe, Zimbabwe’s former leader said that “homosexuality is contrary to African values and that homosexuals are worse than pigs or dogs.” Jacob Zuma, South Africas former leader had said that homosexuality is a disgrace to the nation and God. These forces of government are the diagnosis of homophobia in Botswana, they put a bad face on homosexuality and persuade people to think of homosexuals as pigs or people that should be incarcerated for being different.
Unlike the U.S., till recently on June 11, 2019, there was no hope for the LGBTQ+ community, they celebrated after hearing the Botswana court rule to decriminalize same-sex relations as they found the penal codes to be unconstitutional. The New Frame article reveals how “it is a step that means that queer people can, in principle, live freely, access health services without discrimination, fight for the right to get married should they desire, and that the government must create legal protection for queer people.” This is the direction Africa needs to keep moving in to keep coming up with solutions to help the homosexuals in Africa and have their citizens feel safe.
Homosexuals are big targets for discrimination in Africa, Nigerian writer Chibuihe Obi writes that in his country “the threats are no longer confined to social media; they have bled in our lives, into the real and the physical, into actual rooms we occupy, jobs, we hold, cafes we frequent. We are not metaphorically afraid – we are physically, literally under threat”. Without the help of the government to enforce strict rules deeming that homophobia is irrational and punishable many people in Africa will remain in peril for more years to come.
The people reading this article, or who have read it can see that Botswana is trying to change for the better. Unlike other countries in Africa, they are trying to get equality on all bases for homosexuals for the first time.
Homosexuals residing in Brazil have been at risk of their lives being taken for years. As opposed to the U.S., the Brazilian government has not provided protection for the LGBTQ+ community where they can be physically safe to be who they are. Brazil was known to lead the world in homophobic homicides, according to the article published by Alessio Perrone, Independent News, “Brazil criminalizes homophobia and transphobia”, there were 117 deaths in 2017 due to homophobic attacks.
In June 2019 the Brazilian Supreme Court criminalized homophobia and transphobia due to the discrimination and deaths that kept happening. Even though homophobia was criminalized, President Bolsonaro still expressed how he is homophobic and proud, like Trump and most activists in Africa, and they will continue to affect the public in a bad way to continue being prejudice against homosexuals.
Brazil is a dangerous place in the world for homosexuals who reside there. According to Perrone, someone is killed in a homophobic attack every 16 hours in Brazil. Bolsonaro frames heterosexual families as genuine families as opposed to homosexual families, this being the diagnosis for homophobia in Brazil. He is not someone people should agree with nor is he someone who speaks off of facts. Other activists like Jean Wyllys and Renan Quinalha suggest that Bolsonaro is just being his homophobic self and he is adding onto the alarming levels of violence towards the LGBTQ+ community. Having gone from a place that incarcerated and killed people for being homosexual to being a place that criminalized homophobia and transphobia is great, though many claims-makers still frame the LGBTQ+ community as pigs, some are looking for a change that can result in absolute equality.
Homosexuality in Brazil and Botswana had created two contrary social problems frames based on the same phenomenon. In Botswana they suggest that homosexuality is unAfrican and should not be tolerated. Its framed as opposing their religion and going against social norms that many feel should never be violated. In Brazil they relate that being homosexual should not be a punishable act. Instead, they have framed this problem as homophobia and have made it illegal. They have a concern for the deaths that were reported in their country and they are dealing with it lawfully by protecting the LGBTQ+ community, unalike activists in Botswana continue to bash homosexuals and outcast them by considering them unAfrican. Though both of these countries are dealing with homosexuality they are framing and dealing with them in very different ways.
Homophobia is a social problem that is not attended to like other problems that are framed to be more important to our nation in the U.S. and other countries as well. Despite numerous changes in the U.S., Brazil, and Botswana to increase the rights of homosexuals and help them live a fear free life, the activists like the Presidents and others seem to try to draw back time and they make laws to discriminate against the LGBTQ+ community. The fight isn’t over and while the opposers aren’t going to back down on discriminating against homosexuals neither will the LGBTQ+ community stop fighting for their equality.
