Human rights, sexual orientation, and gender identity

I'm reading today about human rights, sexual orientation, and gender identity. This is as part of my interest in the UNDP's work to push for "third gender" rights in Nepal. Its interesting to read some of this; I'm looking now at a paper by Nicholas Barry about theoretical justifications for "sexual orientation and gender identity" (SOGI) rights, based on Ronald Dworkin's idea of political rights as "trumps over otherwise adequate justifications for political action. " He argues that Charles Beitz's justification for rights, which relies too much on what is actually achievable in the political realm, is inadequate to justify this. I disagree somewhat with his argument; he seems to think that Beitz is rejecting any rights claim that will be political difficult to implement under current conditions, and that therefore there is little aspirational in it, while I doubt thats what Beitz means; I read Beitz as making more a point about "ought implies can," meaning that rights that could not work under any circumstances would be problematic.

More to the point, though, is the fact that there are a number of ways of justifying attention on these issues. The UN comes to SOGI/LGBT rights through the prism of HIV/AIDS. Look at my book "Power and Principle," in the chapter on the WHO; that agency is dragged kicking and screaming to the idea of rights, by Dr. Jonathan Mann, entirely on the basis of how to effectively combat the spread of the AIDS virus. Its so contentious, in fact, that the Global Programme on AIDS has to be spun off from WHO and given to UNAIDS. I think WHO sill has a very hard time dealing with human rights and "right to health" issues, because of their technical orientation. UNDP, UNICEF, et.al., to my understanding, are of two minds. A lot of people in these agencies still see LGBT rights as needing justification through public health arguments, the "argument from effectiveness" as I've put it (that is, that defending these rights is effective at pursuing some independent goal). But I think what UNDP has been doing in Nepal is more along the lines of "this is right in and of itself." That's Dworkin's argument for rights, less dependent on a utilitarian argument and more based on the good of preserving human freedom and dignity. But this is not an easy sell outside the "traditional" human rights machinery, although it is gaining some traction.

Transgender rights and HIV/AIDS

I'm starting a new project on transgender rights in Nepal. I'm very interested in the decisions in Nepal that have led to an official "third gender" category on Nepali IDs, and the resulting legal protections.

In doing some quick searches on the UNDP's website about transgender rights, I'm struck by the fact that nearly every document I've found refers to transgender people and HIV/AIDS. This surprises me a little, since my experience looking at transgender "hijra" in India suggests that UNDP and other agencies are interested in far more than HIV/AIDS issues when discussing these groups. They also feel that there is a basic human rights and inclusivity issue; these are people who are historically discriminated against and excluded from regular society, and protecting their rights is an element of development in an HRBA system.

On the other hand, this is consistent with a lot of my other research on rights, where I see the reluctance of UN agencies to admit that they want to promote rights for rights' sake. Thus women's rights are important because women make up so much human capital; indigenous peoples' rights are important because of their knowledge of sustainable land use policies; etc. So I assume that the promoting of LGBT rights with the justification that this helps prevent the spread of AIDS, is a similar smokescreen at least in some situations; a way of making a "practical" justification for a larger rights issue. I hope that's the case, anyway, as it would suggest a real commitment to LGBT rights for their own sake, like the one I saw in India, is spreading to other countries as well.