Sex - The classification of people as male or female. At birth, infants are assigned a sex based on a combination of bodily characteristics including: chromosomes, hormones, internal reproductive organs, and genitals.

Sexual Orientation – Describes an individual’s enduring physical, romantic, emotional and/or spiritual attraction to another person. Gender identity and sexual orientation are not the same. Transgender people may be heterosexual, lesbian, gay, or bisexual. For example, a man who becomes a woman and is attracted to other women would be identified as a lesbian.

Gender Identity – One’s internal, personal sense of being a man or a woman (or a boy or girl). For transgender people, their birth-assigned sex and their own internal sense of gender identity do not match.

So, the Yogyakarta Principles: They were written by a group of Human Rights experts* in Yogyakarta, Indonesia in 2006, released in 2007. The 29 principles set about correcting the somewhat distorted perception of who actually qualifies for basic Human Rights (i.e. dignity, respect, social and cultural freedoms, the right to live… to name a few).

Every human in the world has a Sexual Orientation and a Gender Identity. I, for example, have a gay Sexual Orientation, and a male Gender Identity. My mother has a female Gender Identity and a heterosexual Sexual Orientation.

As you are surely aware, most nations in the world restrict, and many severely restrict, the rights of humans based on their actual or perceived Sexual Orientation or Gender Identity. If you’re even suspected of being gay, for example, you could be put to death in 5 countries of the world (Iran, Mauritania, Saudi Arabia, Sudan and Yemen – and in parts of Nigeria and Somalia) or face some other dispicable penalty, because in no less than 80 countries in the world, discrimination is makes it into law. For more information about the shameful integration of homophobia and law throughout the world, take a look at this report by ILGA on State-Sponsored Homophobia (at the very least read the introduction, it’s very good).

As well as putting LGBTI people to death, they allow murders and hate crimes to go unpunished. Principle 7, paragraph A of Yogyakarta (among others) should see to that, but it saddens me that the very first article of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights of 1948 apparently isn’t enough to cover it:

“All human beings are born free and equal in dignity and rights. They are endowed with reason and conscience and should act towards one another in a spirit of brotherhood.”

Just because Sexual Orientation and Gender Identity weren’t particularly ’spoken about’ in 1948 after the atrocities committed in World War II, that doesn’t excuse any of the discrimination or violation of Human Rights that happens today.

To best sum up the Yogyakarta Principles, I give you this quote from its official Human Rights Law review:

Most of the principles are titled in a manner that directly reflects the provisions of human rights treaties: right to education, highest attainable standard of health, etc. Those that differ are so phrased either to more specifically address a problematic situation (Principle 18, Protection from Medical Abuse), or to better reflect an accepted legal standard that does not derive from any one specific treaty provision (the principles on promotion of human rights-27, effective remedies-28 and accountability-29).

The content of each Principle reflects the particular human rights challenges that the experts identified as well as the precise application of the law for that situation. As such, they vary widely in style and category of contents.

However, a general typology for the legal obligations of States can be observed:

1. all necessary legislative, administrative and other measures to eradicate impugned practices;
2. protection measures for those at risk;
3. accountability of perpetrators and redress for victims;
4. promotion of a human rights culture by means of education, training and public awareness-raising.

The Yogyakarta Principles seek to end all possible loopholes governments use to violate the rights of human beings that aren’t explicitly covered by the usual labels that exist to block discrimination.

Unfortunately, only 66 states of the 192 United Nations member states have actually signed the principles. The remaining states acknowledge them, but will not follow them. For the changes laid out in the Yogyakarta Principles to take full affect, according to article 108 and 109 of the United Nations Charter (it’s short, you can read it), 2/3 of the 192 United Nations member states must vote in favour of these principles.

We need the vote of 128 nations of 192.

Indonesia, despite hosting the collaboration of these principles, has not signed them. It says it couldn’t possibly take a different stand to the Organization of Islamic Countries, who have flatly rejected it.

This can change.

I see no reason why a Secular Democracy who happens to have a large Muslim population should follow the restrictive rules of the OIC, thus combining religion with state and denying equal rights to all of its people.

If you want to help find a place for real legal equality then please, spread the word. People need to know about this.

Discrimination is inexcusable in all forms, yet it’s happening right now in an official capacity, and in other ways we can only begin to imagine.

You can read the actual Yogyakarta Principles right here. If you’re only going to read the principles and not the full PDF version, please at least read the introduction and preamble found in the PDF version.

*The principles were written by experts from 25 countries representative of all geographic regions. They included one former UN High Commissioner for Human Rights (Mary Robinson, also a former head of state), 13 current or former UN human rights special mechanism office holders or treaty body members, two serving judges of domestic courts and a number of academics and activists. Seventeen of the experts were women. (A full list can be found on page 233, footnote 136 here).