This type of tourism is aimed to satisfying the needs of the exponents of the LGBT community (Lesbian, Gay, Bisex, Trans). Often members of this community feel threatened and therefore hide their sexual orientation when they are in public, especially in countries where there is a low degree of tolerance.the LGBT one can be defined as a new market, according to Hughes (2006) the reason why this branch is not fully explored is the researchers’ fear of being judged for their discoveries (Peter Robinson, Sine Heitmann, Peter, 2011).
What are the favorite destinations of the LGBT community?
Generally the preferred destinations are large cities, which however are not too expensive. And above all well organized from the point of view of regulation, because obviously they want to be sure of not being attacked on the street, or at least to be protected in case they have problems. Furthermore, it is good that in the destination, places where you can meet with people from the same community are easily traceable and reachable, in order to socialize and meet new people. Without having to fear any prejudice. It often happens that destinations interested in making themselves known as friends of the LGBT community advertise themselves exactly in this way, so that they can reach as many LGBT tourists as possible. They can do this for example through local travel agencies that specialize in the needs and requirements of a member of the LGBT community. If we analyze the data provided by GayTravel.com, the three cities considered, for one reason or another more closely related to LGBT needs, are Puerto Vallarta, Mexico, New York City, America; Tel Aviv, Israel.
LGBT tourism can also be motivated by factors such as events, or such as: The gay pride parade, parties organized by the neighborhoods in honor of the LGBT community, More concerts, sports activities, and so on. During the entire duration of these events the number of appearances reaches its saturation level.
In America, the tourist flow generated by the LGBT community generates approximately 65 billion dollars per year. And, also in America, adults are able to spend over $ 600 billion a year. According to the Gay European Tourism Association, this industry generates over 50 billion Euros per year in Europe.
The first ever destination to have been interested in the LGBT tourism industry was Philadelphia, creating the first advertisement designed to entice the viewer to practice this type of tourism.
Who organizes LGBT trips?
More 37 years ago the IGLTA (International Gay and Lesbian Travel Association) was founded, which every year organizes an event that attracts people from anywhere on the planet, at the moment it can boast over 2000 thousand members. At present there is only one magazine dealing with the LGBT tourism industry in the United States of America. You can consult it only through the famous Apple devices ‘Ipad’ or with the nook. In Europe the GETA (Gay European Tourism Association) is working to make known and this type of tourism.
LGBT tourism
That of the LGBT community is a particular phenomenon that represents a new slice of the market, which the largest companies want to appropriate. The money this community has to offer is called the pink dollar.
The increase in tolerance towards this community is leading more and more people to come out of the closet, thus increasing the number of members belonging to the LGBT community who travel and generate a flow of money.
It is generally thought that couples of homosexual tourists pour in good economic conditions since despite having a double salary they have no children to look after (they are actually called DINK, Dual Income No Kids) (Jeff Guarancino, Ed Salvato, Columbia University Press, 2017) therefore they can save a higher part of income. It is the first time ever that homosexuals with more than 50 years of age are able to become part of a market segment, in this specific case, the LGBT tourism market (Jeff Guarancino, Ed Salvato, Columbia University Press, 2017). In reality a study conducted by Vorobjovas-Pinta and Hardy (2016) found that most of the statistical research based on the LGBT community is actually targeted only to homosexual Caucasian men. this is not always true because homosexual men are usually paid less than heterosexual men. Interesting is the fact that this gap between heterosexual and homosexuals does not occur in the case of women (who, however, receive on average a lower salary than men).
How much important are pride events?
According to some estimates during gay pride, there is a significant increase in tourist flows from the LGBT community. In this sense, gay pride can be seen not only as an ideological battle but also as a way to increase the flow of money. It is important to keep in mind what tourists in general, and here specifically LGBT people, need, if they feel safe leaving the hotel, and simply walking on the street or going to some bars. And above all what they think of gay pride, and events organized specifically for them, if they feel represented in the right way. A curated marketing session can result in a significant influx of LGBT tourists and consequently greater employment and greater profit for the destination.
Some examples of gay pride-themed events.
In Orlando, Florida every year the first week of June you can attend the most important event of the moment. All of this takes place in Walt Disney World. It can count up to 30,000 people.
Also in June but in a different location the Seattle Pride is held, in Seattle, Washington.
In Pine City, Minnesota, gay pride has managed to survive protests from Christians living in the area, and thousands of people gather every year to celebrate under the rainbow flag.
Security for LGBT travelers
Needless to say, travelers need to be guaranteed a certain level of security. Nobody would ever think of going on vacation to a place that certainly knows how to be mortal. During the decision-making process, when evaluating which is the best destination, it is not only the actual risk presented by the destination system that is very difficult to estimate, especially if you do not have the necessary knowledge, but also and above all the perception of it.
When booking a trip it is important to have absolute certainty that our destination is safe and free of dangers. This is the reason why in the event of war or terrorist attacks, tourism in the region concerned drops dramatically, with a consequent increase in arrivals to other destinations, which do not have that kind of problem.
In the case of LGBT tourism, the perception of security plays a key role because, if the destination is unable to understand and accept homosexuality, it is easier for members of the LGBT community to suffer mistreatment and injustice, and therefore to decide for the right reasons to go on vacation somewhere else. This can cause problems for the destination, because if it is perceived not only by the LGBT community but by anyone as an intolerant and violent country, fewer and fewer people will be inclined to visit it. This reduction in the tourist flow could cause serious damage to the local economy. Worldwide, more than 70 countries provide for penalties for homosexual relationships by law. So it is necessary to know where it is illegal and where it is not. To this end Expedia and other OTAs are working to make travel preparations less tiring. Expedia in particular has added the LGBT category as a search option, and provides information on which are the best hotels or places to eat or visit without incurring any dangers. However, the organization method most used by LGBT tourists is that of local travel agencies.
Conclusions
LGBT tourism is now playing an important role in global tourism. More and more LGBT people decide to take holidays in other countries, making the economy turn. It is therefore essential to harness the energy provided by this new flow and exploit it to renew the infrastructures dedicated to tourism, making it truly accessible to anyone. To do this, however, it is not enough to hang some multicolored flags. It is necessary to pay attention to several factors, first of all: perception.
As already mentioned, a bad perception of experience could seriously damage the reputation of a region in the long run and compromise its profit, even if only to a small extent. Intolerance and violence are almost never frowned upon, and things are unlikely to change in the future. So to have a good reputation it is necessary that the locals are able to behave civilly, maintaining their opinions but without injuring anyone.
This is the most complex part since it would be useless, if not counterproductive, to build a completely LGBT friendly hotel in the center of a completely homophobic city. If you really want to transform a region you cannot work on adults, because it is very difficult for them to change their mind, instead you have to work on children and teach them that the different is not wrong.And that is what are happening in Brazil where because of poverty and despair, attacks perpetrated against LGBT people are frequent (Mountian, I.(2014))
However, it is necessary to keep in mind how much LGBT families are really able to spend, so as not to exceed with prices. And above all it is necessary to keep in mind the value for money, people do not like to spend more than they should. An excessively high price could result in a huge gap between perceived quality and assumed quality. Again bringing the tourist to be dissatisfied to the point of choosing other destinations for his future travels and, worse, advising against the destination and undermining its reputation.
People are different in many dimensions. Some of these dimensions include age, race, ethnicity, class, gender, and sexual orientation among others. While society continues to embrace the growing diversity, it is clear that integrating certain differences still faces significant resistance. Lesbians, gays, bisexual and transgender (LGBT) people constitute one of the groups that still face rejection in the modern society (Woods 126). They face disadvantages in terms of employment opportunities, workplace equality and fairness, poverty, and justice among others. While opponents of LGBT feel that there are reasons to justify the maltreatment rendered against members of this community, it is clear that these behaviors and sentiments are self-defeating in a society that values and cherishes diversity, fairness, and equal treatment regardless of the prevailing differences, be it gender or sexual orientation.
Members of the LGBT community still face discrimination in different realms, which is certainly unfair. Gaynor outlines instances in which government, in recent years, has spearheaded efforts of discriminating against members of the LGBT community (12). Several attempts to bar transgender sailors and soldiers from working in the military has been documented in the recent past. President Trump’s administration has been at the forefront in banning transgender men and women from serving in the military, as their presence in the service is deemed distracting. The requirement that transgender people serve in their birth genders is wrong. It defeats the strides that have been made towards equality and enjoyment of freedom and civil liberty. Identification as a member of the LGBT or otherwise is not a crime. Freedom of identification and expression are ingrained rights in the constitution (Gaynor 13). Therefore, it is unconstitutional to either force transgender people to serve in their birth genders or not to serve at all.
There has been a lot of victimization of transgender people in the criminal justice system. Woods (2018) documents the apparent victimization of members of the LGBT as far as crime is concerned. Before the mid-1970s, members of the LGBT community were defined as deviant sex offenders (Woods 130). However, several milestones occurred beginning from the mid-1970s, including decriminalization of homosexuality as a deviant sex offense. Regardless of these milestones, LGBT people still face severe challenges and inequalities in the criminal justice system (Woods 129). First, there is an overrepresentation of LGBT youth in foster care and in juvenile detention. There is little study as to the cause of increased LGBT criminalization. No studies point out why members of the LGBT community are considered more of criminals than offenders. What is clear is that most of these people are just but victims of hate crime and that the law does very little to protect them.
Members of the LGBT community are just but ordinary people. They have rights just like the rest of the population. They are citizens just like the rest of the people. Their discrimination across various sectors including the military is not justified. There are no moral grounds to deny them their rights and freedoms just because they seem to fall out of the mainstream societal expectations (Gaynor 13). Discriminating against them is self-defeating as far as proclamation of universal quality is concerned. Criminal justice must work to defend people equally regardless of whether they are straight or gay or male or female. The essence of the law is founded on the basic principles of equality (Woods 131). The society must continue to change its perception on LGBT and recognize members of this group as part of the community.
In conclusion, great strides have been made since the mid-1970s as far as protecting the rights of the LGBT people is concerned. Certain threats have emerged in the recent past, and it has become apparent that some of the most important milestones are being reverse-engineered. Members of the LGBT are just like ordinary people with rights to enjoy. The decision of whom to love is simply an individual matter and must never be applied as an excuse to trample on important rights and freedoms.
Works Cited
Gaynor, J. L. Trump Continues Assault on LGBT Rights. Out in Jersey. February/March, 2019.
Homophobia is defined as dislike of or prejudice against homosexual people. People being homophobic is causing children across the world to go through pain every day because of their sexuality. Most of the pain and suffering is caused by bullying in schools. Making children feel welcome in schools should be a priority, not a choice. Students can not feel welcome if they do not feel safe; No Promo Homo Laws make it where students cannot be protected. No Promo Homo laws are laws that say in a factual manner and from a public health perspective, that homosexuality is not a lifestyle acceptable to the general public and that homosexual conduct is a criminal offense under the laws of the state. No Promo Homo Laws should not exist because they are bad for LGBTQ+ youth; these laws lead to discrimination, abuse, and trauma.
Over a fifteen years span, lawmakers and school administrators have started to recognize that LGBTQ+ (Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Transgender, Queer, and other non-gender conforming) youth are a vulnerable population in schools. As a result, many administrators have implemented policies designed to ensure all students feel safe and welcome at school, but not in six of the states (‘Like Walking Through A Hailstorm’). These states are Alabama, Arizona, Louisiana, Mississippi, Oklahoma, South Carolina, and Texas. Unfair discrimination against students and improper sexual education are among the side effects of No-Promo Homo Laws ise states. Bea Giauque, a bisexual highschool student, recalls, “When I went into tenth-grade health, with the knowledge I was Bisexual, the entire thing was, ‘Oh hey, men and women go together, girls and boys are going to have sex. That is how it is’”. This experience speaks to the inadequate information that LGBTQ+ students receive in health class, where they are denied access to safe non-heterosexual sexual practices.
As a result of lack of legal protection, LGBTQ+ youth experience verbal harassment 85% of their time in schools (LGBT Bullying and Discrimination in Schools). For example, high school is harder for LGBTQ+ youth than other teens. Walking through the hallway of the high school and getting called things like ‘Lesbian, Gay Boy, Carpet Muncher, Fag, Queer, or he-she’ is something no child should have to go through. These children just want to be who they are, but they feel they can not because of the names they are called and the way they are treated. No Promo Homo Laws prevent schools from educating other students about the LGBTQ+ community, which makes the children who are not a part of this community feel it is wrong and immoral not to be heterosexual. Worse yet, in some of the states like Alabama and Arizona, schools must teach children that homosexuality is not a lifestyle accepted in the general public, which leads to more dangerous forms of harassment against LGBTQ+ students (No Promo Homo Laws).
Physical harassment is another way children of the LGBTQ+ community are being targeted. No student should be scared to go to school because walking into school for them means getting pushed into their locker or being followed home and beat up. On this, Bonnie Owens, a high school teacher, says, “Many teachers, because the law is vague understand it as a gag rule, meaning they can not talk about homosexuality at all. What that means is that a lot of teachers are not actually fulfilling their responsibility to keep children safe because they do not think they can intervene in anti-gay behavior”. However, teachers can intervene; the laws were made to only be applied in health class. Unfortunately, homophobic people took the law to apply throughout all school settings. In Oklahoma, the law states, “AIDS prevention education shall specifically teach students that engaging in homosexual activity, promiscuous sexual activity, intravenous drug or contact with contaminated blood products is now known to be primarily responsible for contact with AIDS virus” (70 Oklahoma 70-11-103.3). This law was made when people thought homosexuality causes AIDS, but people now know it does not.
Prejudice, rejection, and stigma of LGBTQ+ lifestyles often leads to trauma. Knowing that society rejects people for who people are can be a traumatic experience. At some point in time, homosexuality was even considered a mental illness. However, people now know that is not the case. The classification of homosexuality as a mental illness was the result of psychological understandings of sexuality that relied on values and beliefs about the world that are specific to a culture, Western Culture. It is now well known that sexuality for other groups, Native Americans, for instance, did not rely on male and female pairings. In many Native American societies, sexuality was fluid; people could identify with genders that were not restricted to male and female. For example, Native American people could identify as ‘Two Spirit’, if they felt that the label best applied to them. As a result, people who now identify as part of the LGBTQ+ community experience physical and mental trauma when American society tries to impose on them its views about sexuality, which are only views and understandings that are specific to this culture and not universal.
Heterosexual society feels fear, or homophobia, towards LGBTQ+ lifestyles. These concerns revolve around changes to the values and customs that have defined heterosexuals’ life experience and American society. However, this is a mistaken notion; their fear has no grounding. No one will force heterosexuals to partake in sexual activity or activities associated with LGBTQ+ lifestyles. Should heterosexual people freely choose to participate in these activities, it would not be because they have been coerced, manipulated, or pressured into doing so. Instead, if heterosexuals engage in LGBTQ+ sexual practices, it would be because these attract them; that is, heterosexuals feel curious about non-heterosexual lifestyles and sexualities.
People support No Promo Homo Laws because of their religion. Most religions say something about being gay is wrong, so they think if they talk about being gay in schools it will go against their religious views or their beliefs. On that note, we are not allowed to talk about religion in schools in a way that promotes a specific religion, so if certain religions say that homosexuality is wrong, religious beliefs should not affect the lives of those who do not believe in those religions. If a person thinks homosexuality is wrong based on religious beliefs, that should not affect someone in a public setting, like high school, where religion should not have any influence.
The people of the LGBTQ+ community do not want to be feared or shamed for the way they live, they are just looking to be accepted. No Promo Homo laws are making it hard for them to feel accepted. These laws put making children feel safe at school up for discussion, and that should not be the case. The laws are outdated and need to be repealed to fit the times. In conclusion, the laws should be repealed so that no one will suffer discrimination, abuse, and trauma in school.
Same-sex marriage is the legal union between individuals of the same sex whether it may be both males or both females. While it may be legal in many countries for people of the same sex to get married it is illegal in Jamaica, but there are still homosexuals here.
Back in the day same-sex marriage or couple were not as open as it is now due to discrimination and the bible. While reading the bible we learned that God created Eve for Adam, a female for a male not a male for a male or a female for a female. So that is to show that God intended for us to be a couple with the opposite sex, so therefore in the eyes of God, same-sex marriage is wrong. And it is frowned upon by the Christian church.
In same-sex marriage, these individuals cannot reproduce so they end up having to adopt children. Most time the adoption process may take a while for these individuals. Heterosexual families have a better chance of receiving children via adoption than homosexuals. These children may grow up in a loving family from both parents but they may be faced with discrimination at school from their peers or they may even face discrimination while out with their parents. Individuals tend to believe that children who grow up in these families will grow up to be homosexuals themselves and promote homosexuality in their society and they also believe that children who are grown up in heterosexual households are better off. But I believe it is not so, I know of children who grow up in a heterosexual household but are still attracted to individuals of the same sex, so sometimes it has nothing to do with the family the child grows up in but rather the child and the feeling they carry inside of them.
Same-sex marriage is a widely growing practice in our society today. This is showing the new generation of children that they are free to be who they are or free to be with whomever they want to be with even though some countries have not legalized it yet it is still showing them that they can be themselves without discrimination and judgment from people in their society. But being in a relationship with a person of your sex maybe good and all but can lead to various kinds of health complications for these individuals, As I learned in Human Sexuality class your body is at more risk of having an STI or STD when you have sexual intercourse in the anus. And once the muscles are stretched it can never come back together as the walls of the vagina can expand and go back together.
Same-sex marriage can hurt the society the individuals are living especially if persons living in those environments are not in agreement with such a lifestyle. It can cause an increase in crime towards those persons as seen in the news over the past years in Montego Bay toward the way residents treat homosexuals.
In many major religions, same-sex marriage has been forbidden and illegal. Additionally, in many countries across the world such as ….. Same-sex relationships and marriages are viewed as unnatural and against God’s views, Canada is one of the first countries that allow same-sex relationships and same-sex marriages which opened up a portal for many social justice advocates and organizations to try and get countries across the world to follow in their steps. The three major religions Christianity, Islam and Judaism are against homosexuality and in turn disapprove of same-sex relationships and marriages
Christianity
Throughout the history of Christianity as a major viewed religion in the bible, there is mention of Sodom and Gomorrah a city where homosexuals were perceived as unnatural and against God’s wishes so in turn God burned down the city to punish those who committed homosexual acts which was deemed as a sin. Although it is talked about in the bible about not being natural and that it should be men and women. Certain denominations accept it with full arms open because in the bible it says we shouldn’t judge on another. Others believe it’s just an agenda homosexuals are pushing.
Islam
Islam is very similar to Christianity when it comes to its views on same-sex marriage or relationships. They’re not accepted.
Judaism
Similarly to Christianity, homosexuality has been viewed as an abnormality and can be capitally punished under the Torah. Many orthodox jews of course go by the first testament and they follow all of God’s many commands one being having relations in modern terms with the same sex is deemed ungodly and is frowned upon.
In Canada, because we have so many rights and because we legalized same-sex marriage I believe it makes us a great country. We’re able to protect a group of people that used to be scared to be who they are. Because we’re so open, we’re able to save a lot of people who have to seek refugee because of whom they love. And for that, I’m truly proud to be Canadian. In countries like Saudi Arabia, two men cannot be caught holding hands in public or showing any type of affection towards each other on a romantic level. But in Canada, it is perfectly normal to see two men or two women walking the street romantically showing affection.
In conclusion, same-sex marriage has come a long way and will continue to progress. I don’t believe the three religions will ever fully accept it, just because it’s written that it is wrong and it’s in their sacred texts.
Growing up, I always felt different. I struggled to fit into society’s expectations, grappling with my identity and the complex emotions that accompanied it. Little did I know that my journey would lead me to the vibrant and diverse community of LGBT individuals, where I would find acceptance, love, and the courage to embrace my true self.
Body
As a teenager, I navigated a world that seemed binary, divided into categories that never quite captured the depth of human experience. I felt like an outsider, questioning my own identity and searching for a sense of belonging. It was during this time that I stumbled upon stories of people who shared similar struggles and triumphs within the LGBT community.
One particular narrative resonated deeply with me—a personal account of self-discovery and acceptance. It was a story of an individual who, like me, had questioned their sexual orientation and gender identity. As I read about their journey, I found solace in knowing that I wasn’t alone in my feelings. Their words encouraged me to explore my own truth, embarking on a path of self-discovery.
I began connecting with others who shared similar experiences. In LGBT support groups and online communities, I found a safe space to share my thoughts and fears. Through heartfelt conversations and shared stories, I realized that the LGBT community was not just a label; it was a tapestry of diverse individuals, each with their own unique journey.
Within this community, I witnessed tremendous resilience and strength. I met individuals who had overcome adversity, who had fought for their rights, and who had found love and happiness despite societal obstacles. Their stories inspired me to confront my own fears and embrace my authentic self.
With newfound courage, I decided to come out to my closest friends and family. It was a nerve-wracking experience, unsure of how they would react. To my relief and joy, they embraced me with open arms, supporting me on my journey of self-acceptance. Their love and acceptance provided a strong foundation for me to explore and embrace my true identity.
As I continued to immerse myself in the LGBT community, I discovered the power of visibility and representation. Seeing individuals like me, living their lives authentically and unapologetically, gave me hope and strengthened my resolve to be true to myself. Their stories painted a vibrant picture of the richness and diversity within the LGBT community, challenging societal norms and celebrating individuality.
Through my own experiences and interactions with others, I realized that the journey of self-discovery within the LGBT community is not always smooth or linear. It is a personal and nuanced process, influenced by various factors such as culture, religion, and personal circumstances. But amidst the struggles, there is a prevailing spirit of resilience, unity, and the pursuit of equality and acceptance.
Conclusion
My journey within the LGBT community has been transformative. It has allowed me to shed the weight of societal expectations and embrace my authentic self. The narratives shared within this community have not only given me the courage to explore my identity but have also fostered a sense of belonging and solidarity.
Through personal accounts, shared experiences, and the celebration of diversity, the LGBT community continues to inspire individuals like me to embrace authenticity and advocate for a more inclusive society. It is through these narratives that we find strength, support, and the power to create positive change.
As I reflect on my own narrative within the LGBT community, I am grateful for the connections I have made and the lessons I have learned. It is my hope that as more narratives are shared and heard, we can foster understanding, empathy, and a world where everyone can live their truth without fear or judgment.
Homosexuality is the entrance to a new global era in Palestine. As a result of many reasons, homosexuality is forbidden and illegal for Palestinians and for other countries too. A survey by Pew Research Centre in 2013 found that most people in the region believe homosexuality should be rejected: 97% in Jordan due to the strict norms and religious beliefs, 95% in Egypt, and 80% in Lebanon, the percentage in Lebanon is fewer than other Arabian counties because it has been affected to the French influence. (Pew Research Centre). Some people are demanding to legalize same-sex marriage. However legalizing same-sex marriage is unacceptable for many citizens due to Palestinian norms, health issues, and psychological problems for the kids of same-sex parents.
Palestine is a rural culture that has norms and traditions that are unbreakable, the family is the most important unit. Family’s honor is often reflected in the virtue of its women (IMEU). Modesty and chastity are the values of the pure Palestinian women. But this belief has decreased over time. Nowadays both men and women, bring honor to the family. So homosexuality can never be accepted here in Palestine. Furthermore legalizing homosexuality would result in a real problem for the citizens because they see it as a great sin from a social point of view. Another cause that rejects legalizing same-sex marriage is the medical point of view.
Homosexuality spreads many dangerous transmitted diseases such as the human immunodeficiency virus (HIV) and syphilis these diseases may often be prevalent among men who have sex with men. Men who have sex with men are 17 times more likely to get anal cancer than heterosexual men. Men who are HIV-positive are even more likely than those who do not have HIV to get anal cancer (MSM health). One more reason why same-sex marriage shouldn’t be legalized is the psychological problems that affect same-sex parents’ kids.
Legalizing same-sex marriage affects children’s psychology. Children need fathers so they benefit from having two parents who have different opinions, genders, and personalities. Having parents with different strengths, weaknesses, and points of view helps children grow up. If same-sex marriage becomes common, same-sex couples with children would be lesbian couples. This means that we would have more children being raised apart from Fathers who exist to protect their children and give them that feeling of security. On the other hand, children need mothers, If homosexual marriage is legalized some homosexual men would be raising children, but these children need mothers so they can have a normal healthy life because mothers exist to provide for children and fulfill them with care and love. Another example of the children’s psychological problem is the children’s hunger for their biological parents. Homosexual couples using in vitro fertilization or surrogate mothers create a huge number of children who will live apart from their mother or father. Children of divorce often report similar feelings. Social science research has demonstrated that children who live with their mother and father have a better chance of being successful, healthy, and well-educated in adulthood.
Even though some children could have psychological problems because of the same-sex parents and the holes that might take place in their personality and life because of not having a mom or a dad, there are other children that have perfect lifestyles with same-sex parents. Children from same-sex parents’ families do just as well as children from families where both parents are heterosexual. For example, Helen and Bernadette have two children. The children know whose tummy they came out of and where their donor dad is. The only difference is that they have two mummies, but they are as healthy and feel as good as children raised in families with heterosexual parents (raising children).
To conclude, in my opinion, legalizing same-sex marriage in Palestine can never be neither accepted nor legal because of the Palestinian norms, transmitted diseases, and the negative psychological effects on children. So Palestine should find a cure to help lesbians, gays, and bisexual people to have a healthy, straight relationship with the other gender which can positively affect the person him or herself and the society.
Sexuality differing from the ‘hetero-norm’ has a complicated socio-legal history within the UK, with legal developments key to LGBT acceptance. The first act of equality was the 1967 Sexual Offences Act in which (private) homosexual acts were legalised for those over the age of 21 in England and Wales (Scotland following suit in 1981 and Northern Ireland in 1982). The age of consent in homosexual activity was then reduced to 16 in 2000 and homosexuality was legally made equal to heterosexuality in 2003 (Dryden, 2018). Despite legal equality, there is a well acknowledged prevalence of mental health disorders within the LGBT community, arguably rooted in societal attitudes. These vary from depression, suicidal behaviour and substance abuse. Recent data pooling and meta-analysis has shown such individuals are twice as likely to suffer from mental health illnesses than heterosexual individuals (Semlyen et al., 2016). As such, it appears that despite legal equality, social factors are a key element in governing the mental health of members of the LGBT community. Understanding these causatives will not only progress equality but inform future preventative health measures against mental illness within the LGBT community.
Social Theories of Causality
Homosexuality is historically entangled with mental illness; up to 1973 the influential American Psychiatric Association classed homosexuality as a mental illness and the WHO did so till 1990 (WHO, 2011). Subsequently, until recently many have proposed that the prevalence of various mental health problems within LGBT individuals was a symptom of the overall ‘condition’ of homosexuality, rather than individuals suffering with separate ailments. These attitudes to illness changing demonstrate approaches to illness classification to be a product of social construction and so alter with society (Gergen, 1985).
Separating sexuality from concurrent mental health problems and instead placing emphasis on detrimental social factors was argued by Judd Marmor, a pioneer of homosexual-mental health reform (Hopkins-Tanne, 2004). Marmor stated that in society LGBT individuals are ‘uniformly treated with disparagement or contempt’ and it ‘would be surprising indeed if substantial numbers of them did not suffer’ with mental health problems (Marmor, 1881). Marmor’s argument was a critical development in the understanding of interactions between the social environment and an individual’s health, relating LGBT mental health to the theory of social stress.
Social stress is defined as socio-environmental factors which place pressure on the ordinary adaptive system of an individual (Aneshensel, 1992). Thus, social stress is a product of the environment, social interactions and constructs and the individual’s relative coping ability. Many sociologist and psychologists alike use the Engineering Model to explain the toll of social stress (Scheid and Wright, 2009), in which the stress or force placed on an object will eventually pass its load threshold, causing damage- resulting in poor mental health.
All members of society are exposed to social stress in every day context, however the LGBT community furthers this stress through being a minority community. This status of ‘minority community’ often entails discrimination and stigmatisation from the majority ‘norm’ of the society, thus leading to a higher and chronic presence of stressors in the minorities’ lives (Meyer, 1995). This is coined as minority stress. Examples of LGBT minority stress include; homosexuals who may experience minority stress due to challenging the ‘norms’ of sexuality or transsexual minority stress for challenging both the ‘norms’ of sexuality and gender (i.e. gender as a fixed state).
In his paper, Meyer argues there are three key qualities of minority stress. Namely; determining conditions are external, elevated caution resulting from necessary stress adaptation and result in negative internalisations.
An individual within the LGBT community is often exposed to these social stresses on two levels: proximally (a stressor from the individual themselves) and distally (a stressor which arises from social contexts). These two levels of stress often interact with one another, such as the distal stress of stereotypes and discrimination causing the proximal stress of anxiety and emotional distress- as will be demonstrated in later theories (Fiske, Gilbert and Lindzey, 2010). Both of these minority stresses may be deemed opposite poles of a spectrum by which distal stressors are objective to the society in question such as illegal discrimination. Proximal stressors are extremely subjective and their effect intimately depends of the individual’s character and response to stressors. Conversely whilst distal stressors are objective, it is important to note that they are societally subjective, for example some societies may cause far less distal minority stressors due to an accepting culture or harsher punishments to deter against discrimination.
Social interaction is often seen as a collective way of building ‘the self’. Charles Cooley is an advocate of such a concept. Cooley believed the ‘looking glass self’ was the way in which we perceived ourselves through different members of society; compiling how a mother interacts with their child and how the teacher interacts, allows a ‘reflective’ image to be formed, from which one interprets character and qualities (Cooley, Rieff and Mead, 1902). Logically, it seems that if the ‘looking glass self’ was built upon the discrimination an individual received (i.e. distal stress), then in reaction to this our idea of ‘the self’ will be rife with such negative ideas (such as low self-esteem- a proximal stress) and give rise to mental health problems. Several studies have explored the link between society and the formation of our self-concept. A study of school adolescents found that those who deem themselves high in the ‘social hierarchy’ and thus surrounded by more peers were statistically more likely to suffer with depression and low self-esteem than those of lower social status or no group affiliation (p=
The concept that our social environment builds knowledge of our self is not solely due to Cooley but also the infamous 20th century sociologist Emile Durkheim. In 1897, Durkheim studied suicide in society, arguing suicide to be a result of imbalance between moral dysregulation and social integration (Hilbert, 1986). Durkheim’s theory argued that moral dysregulation (losing control over human nature- a distal stressor) causes a loss of collective identity and shared beliefs. This in-turn prevents social integration of individuals (or minorities) and fulfilling social needs, furthering society from unity, common beliefs and into ‘Normlessness’ where social norms have been eroded. Such a theory seems logical in explaining the causes of mental health problems within the LGBT community, as the differences in sexuality and gender which oppose those reflected by the majority lead to moral dysregulation or in other terms, homophobia and transphobia.
Despite this, there is an understatement in overcoming attitudes of a society causing moral dysregulation, for example despite legal racial equality and decades of progress, 26% of the UK’s population state they are ‘very’ or ‘a little’ prejudiced to other races (Kelley, Khan and Sharrock, 2017).
Societal stigmatisation and its effects on health have always been a call for both medico-social research. Gordon E. Moss’ biosocial theory of mental health and society (much alike Cooley’s notional of societal input) argues that each individual internalises information from both the social and non-social environment (Moss, 1974). If the social environment then provides information which is counter to that which the individual has internalised, somatic processes initialise and initiate a reduction in both mental and physical health. Furthermore, if this information is given by a community and the individual chooses to reject the information supplied, alienation of the individual may occur or additionally, spread of the new information across social networks. Such a model seems a plausible way of explaining both why hatred towards LGBT qualities may cause mental health issues but also explain how the prevalence of illness in the LGBT community is not due to the individual’s act but networks across social communities. Not only is the effect of stress on mental health evident to many clinicians but the biosocial link is clearly supported by medical research supporting the phenomenon (Kiecolt-Glaser et al., 1984), where pre-exam medical students had lower T-cell counts than those with no current exams. Furthermore, the biosocial link between stress and disease is supported further by immune suppression contributing to cancer development (Vissoci Reichea, Vargas Nunes and Kaminami Morimoto, 2004).
Gordon Allport stated that the previously discussed laws of social interaction are laws of which no individual in society is immune to, regardless of their position, and so will certainly have some nature of effect on personality (Dovidio, Glick and Rudman, 2006). In ‘The Nature of Prejudice’ Allport famously stated “One’s reputation, whether false or true, cannot be hammered, hammered, hammered, into one’s head without doing something to one’s character”, perfectly summarising that whether one chooses to accept that which is deemed of them by society or not, society will always impact on the individual and thus fault or cause is not within one’s natural constitution but in society’s attitudes (Allport, 2008).
The LGBT Community and Minority Stressor Exposure
As explored by the various factors in the discussed social theories, minority stressors have a key impact on the mental health of the LGBT community. The LGBT community experiences countless minority stressors which are unique due to the specific homosexual-transsexual niche the LGBT community fills- often spanning beyond these labels in recent years. Therefore, it appears logical to study these unique stressors in order to work towards prevention of their effects.
Perhaps the most common form of minority stress to the LGBT community is prejudice, with 40% of a survey reporting LGBT targeted hatred in 2018 (UK Government, 2018). Prejudice may cause the aforementioned negative actualisation of the self and devalue themselves with no reason to explain why they are not accepted by society other than self-blame (Gartner, 1999). Expanding to socioeconomic theories, discrimination in the workplace may cause the individual to leave their position and take on a career with a lower salary or skill set to which they can provide, thus causing economic difficulties and mental strains- leading towards illness. Stonewall found that 20% of LGBT staff have been targeted by colleagues and 12% lost their job for being homosexual or trans- clearly portraying discrimination in the workplace to have social impacts and limitations on individual job prospects (Stonewall, 2018).
Spanning from discrimination is the proximal stressor of internalised homophobia or transphobia. Here, the discrimination of homo/transsexuality is, in the words of Allport, ‘hammered’ into the LGBT individual’s beliefs, often before realising their own sexuality. Thus, upon realising their LGBT sexual desires, they become conflicted between desire and internalised beliefs and result in self-hatred and often suppression of desires (Gonsiorek, 1982). Mental health impacts commonly related to this social phenomenon include self-harm and suicide (Williamson, 2000. Price and Herek, 1999). Cornish found through LGBT surveying, that an average score of 72.6/148 (148 being 100% homophobic) was found across homosexual males and females (Cornish, 2012). This research supports minority stress and its negative impact on mental health through Cooley’s model and highly accurate account of Durkheim’s model of incongruence between environmental knowledge and that from the self.
Conclusion
From Durkheim to Cooley, one common theme in poor mental health seems clear; the role of discrimination and alienation in altering the ‘self’. Whilst this model of social disturbance is likely to be far more complex and comprise many factors, community affiliation and acceptance appear key to lowering the detrimental health outcomes. Although responsibility of this lies with all, it is the duty of higher authorities to intervene in reducing hate crimes and provide LGBT role models for positive identification in order to move towards tackling the issues on mental health in the LGBT community.
Nazi Germany was characterized by a number of ideologies. The Nazis were driven by their impulsion for establishing a lasting and solid rule within the German population. While the persecution of the Jews in Nazi Germany is well documented, there is very little written evidence about the persecution of homosexuals. This is because of the fact that these persecutions were not a priority in the Nazi regime. Nonetheless, one cannot ignore the plight of this outlawed group. This essay shall attempt to unravel the issues surrounding the extermination of German homosexuals during the 1933 nationwide ultimatum. (Grau, 1995).
Reasons behind the persecution of homosexuals prior to this event
The horrific acts committed in the year 1933 were consigned partly as a result of some ideological beliefs. Nazis believed that homosexuality would ruin the youth. They also realized that homosexuals could not reproduce and would therefore be unable to perpetuate their ‘superior race’. At that time, there was ideological propaganda going around that the Germans were the only pure race in the world. Consequently, there was a need to ensure their continuity; this was a process that would only be achieved through reproduction. It was impossible for homosexuals to reproduce and this meant that they were undermining the German coz. Homosexuals liked forming assemblies and this was perceived as a threat to their Nazi rule. Homosexuals also threatened Germany’s moral society. At that time, homosexuality was perceived as a sickness. German authorities kept claiming that homosexuals would spread their way of life to other ‘normal’ persons if they were allowed to interact freely with them hence the reason for their isolation.
The Nazis strongly believed in a society where everyone had their duties and responsibilities clearly spelled out. They believed in heterosexual families because such an arrangement would only have room for one superior; the man of the house. The ideal German society was one in which wives had no say in their home and were answerable to their husbands. Dominating such a household would be quite easy for the German authorities because all they had to do was to convert the husband and the rest of the family would follow without question. However, homosexuality would not make this possible. The latter arrangement encouraged families comprised of two men and such people were quite difficult to control and dominate.
In order to achieve some form of control, the Nazi authorities decided to spread propaganda about the gay community. They convinced the rest of the population that homosexual men were not as masculine as they should be. In order to ‘restore’ their masculinity, Nazi authorities would make gay men work harder than other men in society. Additionally, they would punish others by castrating them because they wanted to communicate the thought that these men were ‘useless’. However, one must not be fooled by these ideologies as they were nothing more than propaganda. The German authorities were simply trying to discourage homosexual practices and homosexuality in general by making their life harder. The ideologies were used as a weapon for justifying their practices. (Oosterhuis, 1991).
The Nazis, through their leader Hitler, claimed that the youth were easily ‘corruptible’. It was therefore necessary to keep a watchful eye over them in order to prevent their health endangerment. There were severe penalties for homosexuals who tried having relations with young boys. Hitler and the Nazis asserted that the youth should be protected from becoming disrespectable men in the future through those punishments. Some of them included treatment as a sexual offender and also castration for some. The truth of the matter was that these punishments were meant to prevent further conversions to homosexuality in order to protect the perpetuation of their ‘supreme race’.
Another reason that could have led to the constant abashment of homosexuals was the fact that this group could turn put to become a political movement. The Nazi regime thrived upon a lack of cooperation among its inhabitants. Any group that was perceived a highly close-knit could ruin the Nazi reign because they would be well coordinated. Consequently, the Nazis used their ideologies to make their inhabitants share their disregard for homosexuality. This would prevent future cases of homosexuality and would also go a long way in ascertaining that the rest of the population was kept in check. Actually, life for homosexuals was intolerably hard. They had o put up with isolation in camps. As if this was not enough, their friends and families would abandon them and they were left with nothing else apart from their homosexual partners. Hitler’s beliefs were applied to all members of the gay community even despite the fact that most of his friends subscribed to that notion. Because of the negative treatment surrounding homosexual acts, most youth would shun such behavior because they were aware that there would have to face dire consequences for their actions. (Lauritsen and Thorstad, 1974).
It should be noted that the German defeat in the World War had a large part to play in the future treatment of homosexuals. Most authorities claimed that Germany lost because there were some people who had betrayed them. They asserted that their representatives in the War did no support the German government fully; there were some enemies in their midst. The authorities felt that if they identified some of these backstabbers, then they would claim back their lost glory and prevent future instances of betrayal. Consequently, the Nazis tried looking for scapegoats or people they could blame and homosexuals were among the first to fall victim to this. The German government has constantly faced the possibility of a revolution. Since this could come from anyone’s source, it would be advisable to nip it in the bud through prosecution of any organized groups. (Grau, 1995).
The events surrounding the war had a huge impact on the way the Germans treated their citizens. This was because the War took up a lot of physical and emotional resources from German society. After they lost, there was very little left in society a lot of them were economically disadvantaged. Consequently, there was rising inflation and unemployment in the country. People were frustrated and they used marginalized groups as scapegoats for their actions. They needed a group to vent out their frustrations on and homosexuals became victims of this.
It should also be noted that the Nazi regime thrived on the establishment of a radically racist nation. The people of this nation had been brainwashed to believe that only a certain category of people was permissible in society. All others had to be eliminated. The Jews were the first in line because they represented a deviation from the norm. The homosexuals who were not second by were still among this ‘abnormal’ group. Since the German society had already become accustomed to exterminations and ill-treatment of peculiar individuals, then there was fertile ground for persecuting the homosexuals in such a society.
The persecution of German homosexuals started as early as the late eighteenth century. At that time, there was a gay rights movement. The movement was characterized by regular meetings between gay men. There was also a publication called Self Owner. Self Owner mostly talked about the gay lifestyles through some scholars, it also centered on art and literature. Art, in this case, was mostly depicted through photographs and most of these images happened to be very erotic. The journals also served as linkages between various homosexuals in Germany because subscribers could list their contacts there and were, therefore, able to meet with one another. (Plant, 1996).
However, this was a very daring act because they were defying the law. Prior to 1929, the law in paragraph 175 of their penal code claimed that it was an offense to have relations with a person of the same sex. Consequently, the journal had very few members; they were less than two thousand. The key editor of the Self Owner became the object of persecution. This was because he had very he was criminal according to their law. The police raided his home time and time again. They eventually decided to imprison him because of these activities through a two-month-long sentence.
It should be noted that subscribers of the Self Owner publications were not political movements. Most of them were simply interesting in expressing their sexuality through the book. However, these undertakings eventually become a political movement after the formation of the Scientific Humanitarian Committee in the late nineteenth century. The Committee was formed with the main aim of protecting gay rights through favorable legislation. They believed that they could fight for their rights to gays through the abolition of paragraph 175. Additionally, this political movement was also interested in educating the masses about the myths surrounding homosexuality. They did this through a number of avenues. Some of them gave lectures about it, others gave homosexual literature to libraries and they also conducted exhibits and tours around the nation.
Despite the fact that most of their major objective of changing paragraph 175 was not achieved, the Scientific Humanitarian Committee was able to spread knowledge about homosexuality and they caused sparked numerous conversations about the topic. They also gave some homosexuals the courage to stand up before the rest of their colleagues and declare their sexual preferences. It should however be noted that most of these homosexual revolutions were centered on males. Consequently, lesbians and women movements were not a major component of the Committee. Women were yet to become accepted into the mainstream homosexual movement. (Grau, 1995).
After the First World War, there were numerous gay bars that flourished in Berlin. This was because the activities prior to the war had served to reinforce homosexual behavior; the gay rights movements and the Committee. Despite the fact that they were outlawed, there were many Gay bars in the 1920s. Some have even claimed that the number of gay bars in the twenties is far greater than it is in the 1980s. However, this openness later became the source of their demise. The people of Germany were plagued with numerous problems after losing the war. They realized that Berlin (which had the highest number of gar bars) was also synonymous with corruption and inefficiency. People started looking for groups that they could blame for their economic failures and homosexuals became scapegoats.
The large numbers of these gay men caused their needs and want to resemble those of their heterosexual counterparts in many respects. They wanted to prosper their nations through participation in military and other economic aspects of their republic. Consequently, a substantial number of gay men joined the military. Some of them served as senior men within their areas of specialty. However, this placed a lot of attention upon their activities especially from one of the most influential Nazi leaders; Adolph Hitler. Hitler was not particularly fond of homosexuals as he has been quoted saying that these homosexuals were abnormal and that they were contradicting nature. (Rector, 1981).
Adolph Hitler was very intelligent. He utilized the very arguments that homosexuals used to justify their actions. One such argument was that homosexuality was seen as an expression of their inner sex. One of the proponents of this theory claimed that homosexuals were simply women who found themselves in men’s bodies. Hitler used this argument to counter their lifestyles. He claimed that if they were really women trapped in men’s bodies then they were subordinate to real men and that they were unwanted in the community.
The event
During the years 1923 and 1924, the German authorities investigated some murder cases of about one hundred boys. They found that the person who was responsible for these actions was called Haarmann. Things got out of hand when the perpetrator was a homosexual. As if that was not enough, an expert witness invited to give his views about the case was also found to be a homosexual. Therefore his contributions were not given the importance they deserved and this impeded administration of justice by the courts. The expert witness was known as Hirschfield and had been involved in a lot of research revolving around the gay community.
Hirschfield had been committed to the homosexual coz. His work in this field had managed to convince some members of the political arena about the need for tolerance. As a result of his efforts, some members of the Social Democratic party voted against the elimination of a section of the law that penalized homosexuals. He even managed to convince some political activists to speak on their behalf. However, his actions had a minimal impact on the rigid thought processes in German society. Most of them had already made up their minds about this group. However, Hirschfield’s words penetrated into many aspects of society. For instance, he was able to work with the women’s movement thus getting them behind his side; they championed the gay political rights coz. (Rector, 1981).
In relation to these activities, the latter mentioned philosopher founded an institute for Sexology. The institute was involved in counseling members of the community about sexuality. He gave numerous lectures about this subject and made drastic changes to conventional perceptions. He was able to get many people to attend his lectures and he left most of them convinced about his coz. It should however be noted that this person’s actions were not left unabated. He was quite a nuisance to the Nazi authority and there was a need to get rid of him. The Nazis felt that he undermined everything they stood for. They were looking for reasons to persecute him and they found three main ones:
He was gay
He was a Jew
He was a ‘fake’ scientist
Because of all these elements, German society constantly chased after Hirschfield. He was a very insecure person and he was always afraid of the fact that he could be eliminated. However, his influences did not just die with him. He managed to convince a category of individuals to side with him in his research. Kurt Hiller was able to take his place after he started getting old. However, the Nazis did not let him go. They decided to arrest him in the year 1933 and they took him to concentration camps. After that fateful arrest, the Nazis began arresting homosexuals; for their actions and most of them would have to face open hostility and ill-treatment thereafter.
The year 1933 saw the establishment of radical reforms against the gay community through Nazi leader Adolph Hitler. This leader created laws that would renew the hatred against homosexuals. Before 1933, most gays had become very bold. They became comfortable with their preferences and most of them did not feel the need to hide since police were not reinforcing paragraph 175. However, in the year 1933, Hitler changed all this. He ordered all gar bars to close down. He also asserted that there would be no room for homosexual publications such as Self Owner. As if this was not enough, Hitler urged the hotel owners who hosted mostly gay patrons to close down. This order also applied to cafes and bathhouses too. (Lauritsen and Thorstad, 1974).
Hitler also ordered that one of the most prominent institutes championing the gay coz be closed down; this was the Sexology Institute. He urged policemen to take up a large number of their publications and to burin them in public. This also took place in that fateful year.
Despite the fact that some gay supporters thought that there would be some sort of sexual revolution in the 1920s, these thoughts came to a fast halt. Most lesbians and gay men had to keep their activities under the radar otherwise most of them would suffer huge consequences for their actions. It was now a law that openly gay men were to be taken into concentration camps where they would serve sentences. Sometimes when things got really bad, some of these gay men would die mostly out of neglect, starvation, and harsh conditions.
How homosexuals were treated in concentration camps
One of the most notorious persecutors in the camp was called Himmler. Himmler was able to conduct cruel and inhumane acts because of a number of reasons. First of all, he had some psychological problems during his earlier days. He was brought up as a very unhappy child and was a bitter and resenting individual. Secondly, he had taken part in a political inquiry involving the cats committed by what Nazis considered as wrongdoers. But before this inquiry, Himmler had put his thoughts to paper through a diary. In the dairy, he wrote down his thoughts about foreigners. He clearly demonstrated how he could not stand foreigners. He was a sort of person who was driven by conventional roles in society. He believed that women should be inferior to men. He also had the firm conviction that immorality should not be tolerated in society. This was why he stressed the importance of marrying virgins. (Grau, 1995).
His character was heavily influenced by his parents and the social-cultural situation facing him. His father taught the wealthy children and he was therefore exposed to the level of social disadvantages that his family had to endure. This was the point at which he developed a hatred for the elite. Himmler also had minimal social skills. His school-going days were characterized by low levels of interaction with his peers; he rarely engaged in sports and even when he did, the results were not very appealing. He tried accessing the elite social circles to no avail; this was partly because his educational background was limited. Because of his low social status, Himmler could not get higher education. Another major influence on his life was his father. He was a strong and dominating individual and was responsible for making Himmler submissive to authority. This was the reason why Himmler could go about persecuting people after getting orders to form his superiors.
The economic situation also had a part to play in this scenario; there was a lot of inflation and right around that time. Consequently, Himmler’s family had lost most of their wealth. They could barely keep their heads above the tide and Himmler looked for away out of his distress. Later on, it was established that concentration camps became profit-making institutions and this would serve as a source of wealth for Himmler. (Plant, 1996).
This individual was also known for his persecution of sexual deviants. He believed that most of them were immoral and had no place in society. Evidence of these beliefs can be seen even during his twenties. At one time, he found that the lady who was betrothed to his brother was not straightforward. He decided to hire a private investigator to solidify his claims about her infidelity. He could not tolerate such actions and felt that his brother was making a grave mistake to marry such a woman.
As Himmler got older, he started forming links between the issue of sexuality and its importance to the state. He asserted that homosexuals were a threat to world dominance by German society. This is because they prevented rapid population increases that were necessary for outnumbering Germany’s enemies. It was therefore necessary to institute a mechanism that would get rid of them. Additionally, he believed that homosexuals were weaker than other conventional men. Consequently, this weakness could also be manifested in the physical sense through poor fighting skills. He, therefore, felt that most of these individuals had to be eliminated in order to leave room for the so-called stronger men. These stronger men would fight well for the German society and help in its expansion. (Rector, 1981).
All in all, one can conclude that there were some character traits that describe some of the homosexual persecutors (like Himmler) in the concentration camps. They can be summarized as follows:
the belief that they know more about morality than others
they tend to be authoritarians
they tend to hate unconventional persons
they tend to place too much emphasis on chastity
they tend to ‘cleanse’ society of its sexual pervasions
In those concentration caps, most homosexual officials were immediately replaced by a heterosexual official in 1933 and after. This was because Hitler had realized that there was quite a large number and that most of them were a threat.
In 1933, anti-gay officials such as the above-mentioned Himmler and Roach instituted torturous systems to make life hell for the inhabitants. Someone like Himmler justified his actions by saying that if homosexuals were tortured harshly enough; it would drive out their sense of immorality. The troops deployed to concentration camps were told to create some sort of artificial hell for the residents in those camps. It was, therefore, necessary to make sure that this was implemented in the letter.
It should however be noted that there were some elements of hypocrisy within those concentration camps. Officials and guards were supposed to ensure that all homosexuals; especially those who defiled young boys, were punished. However, some books, diaries, and publications have indicated that there were some officials who committed the same offenses they were supposed to punish. For example, in a certain concentration camp called Treblinka, there was an administrator called Max Bielas. Some survivors claimed that he used to have a sexual preference for young boys falling below the age of seventeen. He used to dress them up in fancy clothes and then give them special rooms to stay in. Survivors reported that this administrator had created some sort of barracks for his young boys. The barracks were decorated in such a way that they looked like a playhouse for them. (Oosterhuis, 1991).
However, this special treatment of young homosexual boys was different and crueler in other camps. For example, some survivors in another camp claimed that there was once a homosexual who had been defiling young boys. This man used to work for a power cable unit, however, afterword went round that he was committing these homosexual acts; the power station was attacked and burned down. He was caught and tortured thoroughly so that he could give out the name of his other homosexual counterparts. However, he did not yield to these tortures and was then taken to a concentration camp. Some people claim that he died in those concentration camps because they never heard from him again.
The boy who had a relationship with the above-mentioned power administrator was also arrested. He was taken to prison in the concentration camps and was tortured too. They wanted him to dispel the names of other homosexual counterparts but this boy did not say anything as well. Consequently, they decided to kill him so that he could serve as an example to the other homosexuals in the republic. The executioners did this through a rope. They hanged the boy up and some other camp inhabitants found his limp body hanging from the roof. These young boys died a painful death because they had not been killed instantly. He was left half dead and stayed alive for close to half an hour.
The earlier mentioned Bielsa’s victims also suffered the same fate. Bielas was replaced by Franz Kurtz. Kurtz was a heterosexual and was determined to punish homosexuals. First of all, prior to Kurtz’s ascension to power, his predecessor Max was killed by a prisoner. The new administrator made sure that he looked for Bielsa’s little boys and he executed them personally. (Rector, 1981).
Kurtz also caused substantial changes to the concentration camps. It was reported that there were some boys who were almost taken to the gas chamber by this shrewd administrator. It was reported that a fellow homosexual saved this boy from the wrath of the administrator. As if these actions were not enough, he brought a certain number of women who would be given as prizes to heterosexuals. His intentions fell flat on his face after prisoners began abusing those women. There were orgies in the camp and there were many critics labeled against Kurtz. This is because he claimed to take up a moral perspective by killing or destroying homosexuals yet at the same time he was reinforcing immorality through the issue of prostitutes.
As it can be seen from the above arguments, homosexuality in the concentration camps after the 1933 event (Hitler’s reforms) was quite contradictory. There were certain instances when homosexuality was frowned upon. This was especially in public. Nazis claimed that it was wrong and that there was no room for it in German society. However, there were some Nazi officials who practiced homosexuality in private. Some of them were well known by prisoners in concentration camps and most of them used young boys as mates. It can therefore be said that most of these practices were adopted because they would further the Nazi regime. Condemning homosexuality in public was simply a tool used to suppress the people and to deepen Nazi rule. (Lauritsen and Thorstad, 1974).
Conclusion
The essay examines the issues surrounding the public persecution of homosexuals in concentration camps. These persecutions were instituted in the year 1933 after Hitler took overpower. He banned all gay bars and publications. He also told his officials to arrest any homosexuals after which they were supposed to take them to concentration camps. The concentration camps thrived because of personalities such a Himmler. Himmler’s past is instrumental in the process of understanding why homosexuals were persecuted to such an extent. However, the situation was also different for some gay prisoners. They were treated in a special manner if they granted certain Nazi officials special favors. However, most of these administrators were eventually found and put to death. All in all, homosexuality was a weapon used by the Nazi regime to oppress their inhabitants and suppress political movements.
References
Lauritsen, J. and Thorstad, D. (1974): The Early Homosexual Rights Movement; New York: Times Change Press.
Oosterhuis, H. (1991): Homosexuality and Male Bonding in Pre-Nazi Germany; New York: Harrington Park Press.
Plant, R. (1996): The Pink Triangle; New York: Henry Holt and Co.
Rector, F. (1981): The Nazi Extermination of Homosexuals; New York: Stein and Day.
Grau, G. (1995): Hidden Holocaust; London: McMillan Press.
The current question is whether transgender women belong in women’s sports or whether these personas should compete in the men’s section. This question is political, ideological, and, above all, biological because any discussion about the differences between women and men must be decided from a physical perspective. The transgender society believes that transgender women are women, and sports should be shared. However, biologists and many sociologists are convinced that this viewpoint leads to the deterioration of the patriarchal system of society. The biological advantages of transgender women are the same as men’s, allowing them into women’s sports is a significant threat.
Summary
Abigail Shrier’s article The Transgender Threat to Women’s Sports provides a series of arguments and evidence that support the idea of excluding transgender people from women’s sports. Shrier’s main idea is that the biological advantages of transgender women prevent girls from pursuing their dreams and achieving high honors in competition (Shrier, 2020). The author cites credible sources, including a clear biological rationale; a link to a website comparing female and male results. In addition, Shrier provide evidences that point to the oppression of girls: they are related to the social impact of including transwomen in sports.
Credibility Assessment
The paper’s author is Abigail Shrier, a journalist and writer: she has degrees in philosophy and has a law degree. Shrier is a freelance journalist for The Wall Street Journal and has been a regular contributor to discussions of the transgender plan since 2020. In many ways, she is a savvy professional who uses scientific terms and critiques transgender theory based on research and interviews. The article The Transgender Threat to Women’s Sports was published in October 2020 in Newsweek’s Opinion section. The report is a summative source, citing evidence from Shrier’s book, Irreversible Damage, using additional sources. The author uses the website Boysvswomen.com as support, mentions Olympic runner Allyson Felix, and the issues of social and athletic scholarships for transgender people at universities and colleges (Shrier, 2020). The evidence Shrier cited is sufficiently reliable and in the public domain.
Analysis
Shrier’s article sparked much controversy and discussion due to the benefits of transgender women. The transgender society believes that oppressed small groups cannot have advantages. Still, Shrier suggests looking at the situation from a biological perspective and understanding that young women “wouldn’t stand a chance” (Shrier, 2020). The author begins the narrative by briefly highlighting the problem and consistently providing arguments. The narrative is logical because it organizes paragraphs with facts to support the main idea.
Shrier’s article is credible because each example does not carry an offensive message but only offers the reader facts with links to primary sources. Shrier argues for the one-sidedness of competition because transgender women have advantages: for example, they have more testosterone and more lung capacity. The examples of female champions are effective: the Williams sisters fought men, after which Serena claimed she did not know it “would be so hard” (Shrier, 2020). Shrier cites a study conducted in Connecticut, stating that giving transgender women scholarships based on sports, and taking them away from girls, is unacceptable. In addition, the author offers a solution to a current problem in women’s sports: an alternative to prevailing conditions could help.
Conclusion
In summary, Abigail Shrier’s article demonstrates that the problem of transgender people in women’s sports is of acute concern to society. Shrier’s work is credible because it contains evidence and reasoning with sound criticism. The author does not use insults and offers a solution to the problem, rather than completely excluding transgender people from athletic competition. Shrier’s article confirms that the documented biological advantages of transgender women prevent girls from achieving honorable honors in sports and society.
Reference
Shrier, A. (2020). The transgender threat to women’s sports: Opinion. Newsweek. Web.