Evil by Julia Shaw

Author:Julia Shaw
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Doubleday Canada
Published: 2019-02-18T16:00:00+00:00

OUT

In 2017, lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender (LGBT) relationships were still a criminal offence in seventy-four countries, including Saudi Arabia, Pakistan and a number of African countries.21 In such countries, same-sex relationships are criminalised under laws covering buggery (anal sex), sodomy (non-procreative sexual activity) and ‘acts against nature’. Just to highlight how these countries have stigmatised this type of sexual activity, these are the same kinds of offences you can be convicted for if you have had sex with an animal. In eight of these countries, homosexual sex is punishable by death. In other words consensual sex with an adult same-sex partner is placed among the worst crimes imaginable, with one of the harshest sentences.

For homosexual acts conducted in private by two consenting adults, countries often do not impose punishments. However, the very fact that they can, and in some countries do, impose criminal sentences on such behaviour makes a very strong statement indeed. Through the execution of laws, these countries seem to scream out that homosexual acts are evil.

Many anti-LGBT countries even flat-out deny that there are any gay people living within their borders. Famously, when asked about the attendance of gay athletes at the 2014 winter Olympics in Russia, the mayor of Sochi said that gay people were allowed to attend as long as they ‘don’t impose their habits on others’.22 Widely ridiculed, he also said that there were no gay people in Sochi – ‘We do not have them in our city.’ The prevalence of gay bars in Sochi at the time suggested otherwise, but he is not the only one with this misconceived belief.

Whether countries accept them or not, estimates and population statistics show that the number of individuals who identify as lesbian, gay or bisexual is somewhere between 1.2 per cent and 5.6 per cent of the population. In addition to this, 0.3 per cent of individuals identify as transgender.23 Although not often researched, a further proportion of the population also identifies as queer, intersex, pansexual, asexual or as part of many other categories of sexuality (sometimes shortened to QIPA+). Just because they aren’t visible or accepted, it doesn’t mean they don’t exist.

Does it make you furious that LGBTQIPA+ individuals are treated as criminals? Or, even worse, as non-existent? Are you intolerant of other people’s intolerance, because we aren’t like that? It can be easy to villainise those who villainise others. I, for example, am intolerant of people who are homophobic. But it is also important to discuss issues that are dear to us with people who disagree with us. Even if there is just a greater understanding won, from either side, such discussions can help to humanise and destigmatise. In particular, minority and underprivileged groups can benefit from voices added to the discussion, someone sticking up for them.

And I wouldn’t be so sure that we are really that different. It turns out belting out Katy Perry’s ‘I Kissed a Girl’ in public, accepting the occasional coming out of a famous person, or even legalising

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