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Source: https://blogs.webster.edu/humanrights/feed/

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<title>Mobilizing (and Weaponizing) Visible Identities</title>
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<description><![CDATA[Anastasis Mauriac, University of Birmingham – United Kingdom Mobilizing (and Weaponizing) Visible Identities: Unveiling the French Discourse [Download PDF] This essay contends that the French government weaponizes the “visible identities” of veiled Muslim women through colonial feminist discourse to uphold secular values and reinforce traditional conceptions of French identity. It provides a brief overview of […]]]></description>
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Anastasis Mauriac, University of Birmingham – United Kingdom

Mobilizing (and Weaponizing) Visible Identities: Unveiling the French Discourse
[<a href="http://blogs.webster.edu/humanrights/files/Mauriac_Visible-Identities.pdf" data-type="link" data-id="http://blogs.webster.edu/humanrights/files/Mauriac_Visible-Identities.pdf">Download PDF</a>]
This essay contends that the French government weaponizes the “visible identities” of veiled Muslim women through colonial feminist discourse to uphold secular values and reinforce traditional conceptions of French identity. It provides a brief overview of how France became a secular state and explain why secularism is at the heart of French identity. This helps uncover the roots of why headscarf debates are so controversial in France. Drawing on on existing scholarship to examine how the French state uses various feminist rhetorics to uphold secular values, the author argues that the feminist discourse that centers on “saving women” legitimizes headscarf bans based on gender equality. Lastly, this piece considers how the French state is excluding Muslim women from public debates to uphold secular values using concepts such as epistemic justice, hermeneutic marginalization, and the argument of false consciousness.
In France, the figure of the veiled woman has recently become a controversial symbol of religious fundamentalism and a threat to Western modernity. A French ban on the hijab in 2004 and then on the niqab in 2010 were directly influenced by anti-terrorism security measures following the 9/11 attacks in the United States. Terrorist attacks in French territory has amplified the weaponization of Muslim women. It is widely believed that the 2016 local bans on burkinis, for instance, are a reaction to public fear of Islamic terrorism after a terrorist attack in the city of Nice (Dearden, 2016).<a href="#_ftn1" id="_ftnref1">[1]</a> Similarly, a 2021 ban on the hijab duringschool trips has been attributed to fear following the beheading of teacher Samuel Paty. Paty was killed after showing his students caricatures of the Prophet Muhammad during a lesson on free speech in 2020 (Al Jazeera, 2021).
I argue that the French government weaponizes the “visible identities” of veiled Muslim women through what Leila Ahmed (1992) calls “colonial feminist” discourse to uphold secular values and reinforce the so-called “French identity.” Weaponization is a process of attacking a person or group using a specific characteristic, such as symbols or identities. Although Linda Martín Alcoff (2006) conceptualizes “visible identities” based on race and gender, I contend that religious belonging can be considered a visible identity. The veil is an outward symbol of religious identity, which makes Muslim women an easy target for Islamophobic abuse. The Muslim community is a visible minority that is a victim of heavy discrimination in France (Le Monde, 2019), and French bans highlight how religious identities can be targeted in everyday ways.
First, I provide a brief overview of how France became a secular state and explain why secularism is at the heart of French identity. This helps uncover the roots of why headscarf debates are so controversial in France. Second, I will draw on existing scholarship to examine how the French state uses colonial, Orientalist, and Western feminist rhetoric to uphold secular values through the weaponization of veiled women. I argue that feminist discourse that centers on “saving women” legitimizes headscarf bans based on gender equality. Third, I consider how the French state is excluding Muslim women from public debates to uphold secular values using concepts such as epistemic justice, hermeneutic marginalization, and the argument of false consciousness.
Historical context
The contestation of the headscarf within French society derives from France’s development into a secular state devoted to laïcité. Laïcité is not the same as freedom of religion. Rather, it means keeping public spaces neutral in terms of religion. France’s contested history with the Catholic Church, as well as various wars over religion, help explain why secularism is at the heart of the French identity, including within its educational system. For instance, the Catholic Church had a strong grip on French schools before a 1905 law prohibited the state from officially recognizing or endorsing religious groups. Public anxiety over overt religious symbolism within the public sphere can be explained by previous conflicts centered on religion (Platt, 2014). More broadly, the protection of public order has always been a priority for French institutions. Secularism is understood as what keeps society intact (Bowen, 2006), and that influences how the state governs public spaces such as public schools and government buildings – two spaces where the headscarf is banned. Central to these bans is the perceived protection of French identity and values (Bowen, 2006). Proponents of laïcité believe it can be used as a tool to prevent religious groups that appear to support illiberal practices, such as forced marriage, from gaining political power. Opponents of laïcité argue that it further discriminates against religious groups because it excludes them from the public sphere (Yardim & Hüseyinoglu, 2021).
It is noteworthy that these debates often utilize the discourse of “saving women” – that is, they believe that “Third World women” need saving because they come from “uncivilized” and oppressive cultures. This rhetoric stems from colonial feminism, a branch of Western feminism that uses an Orientalist framework to assert that they know what is best for Muslim women (Crosby, 2014). Ahmed (1992) describes colonial feminism as “feminism used as a tool against other cultures to benefit the colonisers” (p. 152). (Orientalism is a constructed lens through which the West consistently produces an image of the East as uncivilized and barbaric to dominate it. The West justified its imperial conquest through this constructed representation; see Platt, 2014). The discourse of “saving women” has also been weaponized to justify military interventions, such as the United States’ intervention in Afghanistan (Abu-Lughod, 2002). Secularism, colonialism, and Orientalism are similar in that they contain a hierarchy of values and cultures that is imposed on other groups.
Upholding secular values using colonial feminist rhetoric
Debates about the veil are numerous and heated among feminist scholars and advocates, and I believe these debates directly relate to the discourses used by the French government. Some critics argue that laïcité is used by some feminists to achieve a form of gender equality that is framed as universal. However, it is actually Western-centric (Patel, 2013; Fernando, 2009) and is typically viewed as part of colonial feminism. Others claim that the emergence of Westernized, secular Muslim women who encourage unveiling is also problematic since it requires women to abandon cultural traditions to conform to the French version of citizenship (Kemp, 2010). The French government uses feminist colonial discourse to encourage the Muslim community to adjust to French customs by stressing the role of secularism in achieving gender equality.
Notably, many analyses of this issue perpetuate a monolithic, reductive representation of Muslim women (Yardim & Hüseyinoglu, 2021) due to their focus on how Muslim women can change their behavior to avoid discrimination. There is little consideration of how the French state uses these assumptions and perspectives to its advantage and weaponizes identity for political ends. The veil is reduced to a symbol of gender oppression, and colonial feminists see unveiling as a tool of emancipation. A good example of this is Laurence Rossignol’s 2016 comment when she was France’s Women’s Rights Minister; she compared veiled Muslim women to Black slaves “who accepted slavery” (quoted in BBC News, 2016). Rossignol’s comparison shows she believed that Muslim women who chose to wear the veil were submitting to oppression, a viewpoint which encourages the monolithic representation of Muslim women as needing to unveil to free themselves to achieve equality. By using the discourse of “saving women,” the government also embodies the figure of a savior, which is useful for upholding the state’s political agenda because it hides assimilationist policies under a moral argument that is publicly accepted.
This reductive representation is problematic for several reasons. It erases Muslim women’s agency and essentializes the narrative that they are forced to veil, which is not the case for many (Wing & Smith, 2006). Furthermore, the essentialization of their experiences erases the possibility of different realities (Spelman, 1988). When the French state argues that all veiled women are oppressed, it ignores the reality that many women have decided to wear the veil for reasons such as faith, protection from the gaze of men, and compliance with family values (Ahmed, 2011). Failing to take different experiences seriously can lead to the violation of women’s rights to freedom and expression of religion. Denying their right to choose how to dress does not automatically improve the lives of those who are forced to veil. The “saving women” discourse also implies a lack of agency in Muslim women’s lives, which contradicts feminism’s core principle: elevating women’s agency.
Such reductivism also hides an assimilationist agenda in the name of protecting French identity. This point can be illustrated by comparing the feminist discourse used in the colony of Algeria and in the context of France’s current ban on the veil. During France’s 132-year occupation of Algeria, colonizers launched propagandistic efforts to “emancipate” Muslim women from “patriarchal oppression” in unveiling campaigns (MacMaster, 2009). These campaigns were a strategy to assimilate Muslim women into France’s secularism. Despite using the discourse of feminist liberation, French colonists did not have Algerian women’s interests at heart. Neil MacMaster (2009) considers how the word “emancipation” was used by the French government; it referred to reforms that ensured equality of rights between French metropolitan women and Algerian Muslim women. However, an assimilationist agenda hid behind this term because it sought to transform Algerian women into bourgeois French women. Moreover, the emphasis on girls’ education was an effort to impose Republican values on brothers, fathers, and husbands (Wing & Smith, 2006). This strongly resembles the current situation in France. Under the banner of “emancipation,” the ban has been implemented in schools and forced Muslim girls and women to unveil and conform to secularism. This assimilationist policy reflects France’s anxiety around the public display of religious symbols and the nation’s fear of losing its “French identity.” In this way, veiled women are weaponized through the French government’s use of colonial feminist discourse to reinforce secularism and corresponding French identity.
Excluding Muslim women from public debate
The French state excludes Muslim women from public debate by restricting their spatial mobility, ignoring their experiences, and delegitimizing their voices to uphold secular values. In debates around the veil, Muslim women in France are “silent symbols” (Wing & Smith, 2006, p. 747), though they have hyper-visible identities (Yardim & Hüseyinoglu, 2021). According to the government’s own figures, 60% of Muslim women who wear the veil have experienced discrimination due to their religion, compared to 42% of Muslims overall (Le Monde, 2019). Indeed, Muslim women are easy targets for Islamophobia because they wear the veil, an outward symbol of Islamic affiliation, and are therefore frequently excluded from public spaces. Because of their hyper-visible identities, they are targeted by the French government as symbols of Islamic terrorism. After the 9/11 attacks and the emergence of Islamic terrorism in public debates, veiled women became the prime targets of public anxiety over terrorism. The “Western obsession” (Abu-Lughod, 2002, p. 786) with the veil comes from its association with terrorism and is perceived as dangerous for Western democratic values.
In the context of Islamic terrorism, there is widespread fear of France’s disunity. The communitarian dimension of French Republicanism aims at defending French identity against a “perceived growing cultural affirmation” by Muslim citizens (Heine, 2009, p. 177), and French President Emmanuel Macron warned in 2021 that Islamism was undermining the unity of the Republic (Reuters, 2021). The reinforcement of French Republican values in the face of Islamic extremism requires the exclusion of Muslim women (Heine, 2009) because it instrumentalizes them, using colonial feminist discourse in the fight against Islamic fundamentalism, as amplified by restrictions on religious freedom for Muslim women following terrorist attacks. Yet, the bans punish and target Muslim women for Islamic terrorism and essentialize the Muslim community’s beliefs rather than thwarting future attacks. I believe those bans are sexist and Islamophobic, hidden beneath the discourse of secularism and Republican values.
Another way the French government weaponizes Muslim women to uphold secular values is by ignoring their experiences and delegitimizing their voices, as highlighted by three key concepts: epistemic injustice, hermeneutic marginalisation, and the argument of false consciousness. Epistemic injustice relates to the credibility of some people being doubted or ridiculed based on prejudices (Code, 2014). A good example to illustrate epistemic injustice is the way veiled women were framed by the French media in debates about the head scarf. In one illustrative interview, for instance, three veiled women were perceived as insolent and contemptuous rather than as powerful figures reclaiming the rights of women (Adizzoni, 2004). Their credibility was doubted and ridiculed when they were asked about their experiences wearing the veil, thereby discrediting their opinions about the bans and the state’s attempts to regulate their personal expression. Such an approach is infantilizing, enabling society to ignore Muslim women’s complaints because insolence is usually assigned to someone who is in a position of inferiority and defying authority. It should further be noted that prominent voices highlighted by the French media were almost exclusively men; male politicians, journalists, and religious leaders. The women at the center of the issue were thus denied a voice in the public conversation, and their choice was instead defended or opposed by patriarchs (Adizzoni, 2004).
Hermeneutic injustice occurs when “someone has an area of their social experience obscured from understanding owing to prejudicial flaws (Fricker, 2007, p. 153). This concept stems from a broader framework called “critical race feminism,” which highlights how essentialist images of Muslim women portrayed in the media fail to incorporate women’s voices. This framework is helpful for analyzing how Muslim women have been silenced by media debates that privilege men and for offering possibilities for “demarginalizing” the opinions of women (Wing & Smith, 2006; Brems, 2014). Critical race feminism scholars argue that an “outsider” perspective is often used to depict veiled Muslim women and that legislators do not show an interest in learning about their “lived experiences” (Brems, 2014). Muslim women struggle to share their experiences (and be listened to) as a marginalized identity group, and it is notable that powerful actors, such as French legislators, have an interest in obscuring these experiences so they can better assimilate Muslim women into the secular French identity (Heine, 2009).
False consciousness is another symptom of epistemic injustice that has been brought to life in the wake of France’s veil controversy. False consciousness means that someone has an “unconscious, conditioned reflection of their oppression” and are therefore “complicitous in it” (MacKinnon, 1983, p. 637). In other words, it is a way of thinking that keeps a person from perceiving the true nature of their situation. Veiled women are viewed as having internalized their oppression and inferiority, which is used to de-legitimize their experiences and opinions; they are perceived as brainwashed. This discourse legitimizes Western women speaking for women of other cultures and races and weaponizes Muslim women by silencing their opinions and having their experiences re-framed by others (Wing & Smith, 2006; Crosby, 2014). By invoking imperial feminist rhetoric, Western women end up oppressing Muslim women more than liberating them; they assist the French state in imposing laws that police women’s bodies and limit their spatial mobility – all justified as a way to help them and increase their agency. This is part of colonial and oriental discourses that prominent feminist scholars such as Chandra Talpade Mohanty (1988) denounce. Mohanty (1988) argues that there is a form of “ethnocentric universalism” in Western feminist discourse that posits women from the Global South as oppressed and Western women as emancipated (p. 64). Therefore, women’s experiences must be historically situated and not essentialized (Mohanty, 1988; Abu-Lughod, 2002). I believe that there is work to be done to deconstruct France’s “reductive interpretation of veiling as the quintessential sign of women’s unfreedom” (Abu-Lughod, 2002, p. 786).
Conclusion
I argue that the ban on the veil is a sexist and Islamophobic policy, hidden behind the discourse of gender equality and Republican values. Viewed through a colonial feminist discourse, Muslim women are weaponized to reinforce French identity and its value of secularism. Bans on the veil have Orientalist and colonial roots, using the ideal of “saving women” to encourage veiled women to conform to French secular values. Muslim women are also excluded from public debates, and their voices are frequently ridiculed or ignored. In this sense, their lived experiences of wearing the veil are stolen from them.
The French government’s adoption of a Republican definition of laïcité privileges colonial feminism rather than a more equitable and inclusive post-colonial stance. This version of laïcité views secularism as a way of protecting the public space by restricting religious affiliations to the private sphere (Maclure & Taylor, 2010, p. 20). Although the state insists on the principle of neutrality, it is hostile towards religious belief and adopts discriminatory policies, such as the ban on wearing the veil. Perhaps it is time to implement a form of secularism which welcomes all religions and requires only institutions to be neutral, not individuals. Liberal and pluralist laïcité claim that religious beliefs are individual rights and cannot be penalised, for instance (Maclure & Taylor, 2010). Since the Muslim community represents France’s largest minority (Le Monde, 2019), it is time to adapt policies to include this community – which is also part of the French identity. France’s values are Liberty, Equality, and Fraternity. As Adrien Katherine Wing and Monica Nigh Smith (2006) write: “Let’s make sure that also includes sisterhood” (p. 785).
References
Abu-Lughod, L. (2002). Do Muslim women really need saving? Anthropological reflections on Cultural Relativism and its Others. American Anthropologist, 104(3), 783-790.
Ahmed, L. (1992). Women and Gender in Islam. New Haven: Yale University Press.
Alcoff, L. (2006). Visible Identities: Race, Gender, and the Self. Oxford:Oxford University Press.
Al Jazeera. (2021, April 9). “Law against Islam”: French vote in favour of hijab ban condemned.
Retrieved from https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2021/4/9/a-law-against-islam.
Adizzoni, M. (2004). Unveiling the Veil: Gendered Discourses and the (In)Visibility of the Female Body in France. Women’s Studies, 33, 629-649.
BBC News. (2016, March 30). French minister compares veil wearers to “negroes who accepted slavery”.
Retrieved from https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-35927665.
Bowen, J. R. (2007). Why the French Don’t like Headscarves: Islam, the State, and Public Space. Princeton: Princeton University Press.
Brems, E. (2014). The Experiences of Face Veil Wearers in Europe and the Law. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. 
Crosby, E. (2014). Faux Feminism: France’s Veil Ban as Orientalism. Journal of International Women’s Studies, 15(2), 46-60. Retrieved from https://vc.bridgew.edu/jiws/vol15/iss2/4.
Code, L. (2014). Ignorance, Injustice and the Politics of Knowledge: Feminist Epistemology Now. Australian Feminist Studies, 29(80), 148-160.  
Dearden, L. (2016, August 24). Burkini ban: Why is France arresting Muslim women for wearing full-body swimwear and why are people so angry?
The Independent. Retrieved from https://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/europe/burkini-ban-why-is-france-arresting-muslim-women-for-wearing-fullbody-swimwear-and-why-are-people-so-angry-a7207971.html.
Fernando, M. (2009). Exceptional citizens: Secular Muslim women and the politics of difference in France. Social Anthropology, 17(4), 379-392.
Fricker, M. (2007). Epistemic Injustice: Power and the Ethics of Knowing. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Heine, S. (2009). The Hijab controversy and French republicanism: Critical analysis and normative propositions. French Politics, 7(2), 167-193. Retrieved from http://ucparis.fr/files/1113/6550/6662/Heine_Hijab_controversy.pdf.
Kemp, A. (2010). Voices and Veils: Feminism and Islam in French Women’s Writing and Activism. London: Routledge.
Le Monde. (2019, November 6). Selon un sondage, 42 % des musulmans de France disent avoir été discriminés à cause de leur religion. Retrieved from https://www.lemonde.fr/societe/article/2019/11/06/selon-un-sondage-40-des-musulmans-de-france-ont-fait-l-objet-de-racisme_6018225_3224.html.
MacKinnon, C. A. (1983). Feminism, Marxism, Method and the State: Toward Feminist Jurisprudence. The University of Chicago Press Journal, 8(4), 635-658.
Maclure, J. and Taylor, C. (2011). Secularism and Freedom of Conscience Cambridge and London: Harvard University Press.
MacMaster, N. (2009). Burning the veil: The Algerian war and the ‘emancipation’ of Muslim women, 1954–62. Manchester: Manchester University Press.
Mohanty, C. (1988). Under Western Eyes: Feminist Scholarship and Colonial Discourses. Feminist Review, 30(1), 61-88.
Patel, P. (2013). Multi-Faithism and the Gender Question: Implications of Government Policy on the Struggle for Equality and Rights for Minority women in the UK. In L. Kelly, Y. Rehman, & H. Siddiqui, H. (Eds.), Moving in the Shadows: Violence in the Lives of Minority Women and Children (pp. 41-58). London: Routledge.
Platt, K. (2014). Women and the Islamic Veil: Deconstructing implications of orientalism, state, and feminism through an understanding of performativity, cultivation of 
piety and identity, and fashion. Hofstra University, student thesis. Retrieved from https://www.hofstra.edu/pdf/academics/colleges/hclas/rel/rel_thesis_platt.pdf.
Reuters. (2021, May 4). Hands off my hijab! Young Muslim women protest proposed French ban.
Retrieved from https://www.reuters.com/world/europe/hands-off-my-hijab-young-muslim-women-protest-proposed-french-ban-2021-05-04/.
Spelman, E. (1988). Inessential Woman: Problems of Exclusion in Feminist Thought. Boston:Beacon Press.
Yardim, M., & Hüseyinoglu, A. (2021). Veil and Burqa in the French Public Sphere: A Feminist Analysis. Insight, 23(2), 191-212.
 Wing, A. K., & Smith, M. N. (2006). Critical Race Feminism Lifts the Veil: Muslim Women, France, and the Headscarf Ban. U.C. Davis Law Review, 39(3), 743-784.
© Copyright 2023 Righting Wrongs: A Journal of Human Rights. All rights reserved. 
Righting Wrongs: A Journal of Human Rights is an academic journal that provides space for undergraduate students to explore human rights issues, challenge current actions and frameworks, and engage in problem-solving aimed at tackling some of the world’s most pressing issues. This open-access journal is available online at www.webster.edu/rightingwrongs.
<hr class="wp-block-separator has-alpha-channel-opacity" />
<a href="#_ftnref1" id="_ftn1">[1]</a> The hijab is a head covering/scarf that is worn by some Muslim women to cover their hair and neck. The niqab is a long, black garment that covers a women’s body and face. A “burkini” is a swimsuit that covers a woman’s entire body except the face, hands, and feet. In this article, the terms “headscarf” and “veil” are frequently used as stand-ins for the hijab.
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</item>
<item>
<title>Confronting Transgender Intimate Partner Violence (T-IPV)</title>
<link>https://blogs.webster.edu/humanrights/2023/12/01/confronting-transgender-intimate-partner-violence-t-ipv/</link>
<comments>https://blogs.webster.edu/humanrights/2023/12/01/confronting-transgender-intimate-partner-violence-t-ipv/#respond</comments>
<dc:creator><![CDATA[lkingston54]]></dc:creator>
<pubDate>Fri, 01 Dec 2023 22:02:08 +0000</pubDate>
<category><![CDATA[Volume XIII, Issue 2]]></category>
<guid isPermaLink="false">https://blogs.webster.edu/humanrights/?p=1412</guid>
<description><![CDATA[Alexander Goode, Webster University – Saint Louis Confronting Transgender Intimate Partner Violence (T-IPV) [Download PDF] Transgender intimate partner violence (T-IPV) is an under-researched social problem. Due to a distrust of the police, transgender people are reluctant to seek law enforcement help when dealing with T-IPV and lack formal support for leaving abusive relationships. This paper […]]]></description>
<content:encoded><![CDATA[
Alexander Goode, Webster University – Saint Louis

Confronting Transgender Intimate Partner Violence (T-IPV)
[<a href="http://blogs.webster.edu/humanrights/files/Goode_T-IPV.pdf" data-type="link" data-id="http://blogs.webster.edu/humanrights/files/Goode_T-IPV.pdf">Download PDF</a>]
Transgender intimate partner violence (T-IPV) is an under-researched social problem. Due to a distrust of the police, transgender people are reluctant to seek law enforcement help when dealing with T-IPV and lack formal support for leaving abusive relationships. This paper defines T-IPV, outlines the unique form of IPV that transgender people face, considers the current policies that inadequately address T-IPV, and proposes a violence intervention program that does not immediately rely on police.
Intimate partner violence (IPV) is a serious problem in the United States. IPV includes sexual violence, stalking, physical violence, and psychological aggression. It also includes forms of verbal abuse and financial abuse. The National Intimate Partner and Sexual Violence Survey (NISVS) describes an intimate partner as “spouses, boyfriends, girlfriends, people with whom they dated, were seeing or ‘hooked up’” (Smith et al., 2018, p. 7). The NISVS found that in the United States, one in three women experience intimate partner violence of some form in their lifetime. For men in the United States, the number was also roughly one in three (Smith, 2018). Notably missing from this study, however, are the experiences of transgender and nonbinary people.
Transgender individuals have been ignored or intentionally discriminated against in the existing scholarship and policy related to IPV. This lack of research harms the transgender community because it prevents important information from being disseminated to social service agencies and legal systems. Limited research on transgender intimate partner violence (T-IPV) has found that in the United States, 54% of transgender people have experienced IPV in some form, and 24% have experienced “severe physical violence” at the hands of an intimate partner (James et al., 2016). Tamar Goldenberg et al. (2018) found that nonbinary individuals were more likely to experience intimate partner violence than transgender men and women. Additionally, when an individual is undocumented, has a disability, been incarcerated, was or is involved in sex work, or is HIV-positive and transgender, they are at even higher risk of experiencing IPV (Turell, 2000). Adam M. Messinger (2020) theorizes this is because an individual belonging to multiple at-risk identities may be “more likely to fear the consequences of seeking help for victimization…to perceive sources of help to be less readily accessible…and to view leaving abusers as an untenable loss of emotional and financial support” (p. 115). To change this and make it easier for T-IPV survivors to leave an abusive relationship, new policies must be implemented to address the specific needs of the transgender community.
While transgender intimate partner violence (T-IPV) is an under-researched social problem, we know that transgender people are reluctant to seek law enforcement help when dealing with T-IPV and lack formal support systems for leaving abusive relationships. Because of this reality, a better understanding of T-IPV and how it uniquely affects trans individuals is necessary for the establishment of better support systems. In this paper, I first explain T-IPV by discussing the issue of identity abuse – a unique form of IPV that transgender people face. Second, I consider several theories that help explain the persistence of T-IPV, including honor-based violence theory, disempowerment theory, and minority stress theory.  Third, I outline challenges within the current U.S. legal system for survivors of T-IPV. These include issues related to mandatory arrest policies, no-drop prosecution, and a distrust of the legal system by members of the trans community. Finally, since current policies inadequately address T-IPV, I propose a violence intervention program that does not immediately rely on police involvement.
Identity Abuse
Transgender people experience IPV victimization in many of the same ways that cisgender people do. However, one unique form of abuse that transgender people may face is identity abuse. Identity abuse is a form of abuse that leverages heterosexism and cissexism to harm survivors (Woulfe & Goodman, 2018). Within identity abuse, perpetrators may use retroverting and maneuverting. Retroverting entails the abuser repeatedly referencing back toward a victim’s previous identity or forcing survivors to be like their previous self (pre-transition or coming out), while maneuverting entails abusers framing the desired gender identity as unobtainable (Koontz, 2020). In both situations, abusers may take steps to make victims’ physical transition or expression of gender identity nearly impossible. They may ridicule or belittle transgender identities, dictate how gender is expressed, deny access to gender-affirming care, and threaten to “out” someone (Leslie et al., 2022). Victims may also be told that they are not a “real” woman or man by an abusive partner (James et al., 2016) or held to standards of masculinity and femininity that are impossible to achieve (Koontz, 2020). Abusers may also destroy “props”’ associated with gender transition. These props could be a chest binder, gender-affirming clothing, makeup, or prosthetics. Amanda Koontz (2020) writes that abusers control these props (both providing them and taking them away) to maintain power in the relationship, to keep victims reliant on the abuser, and to maintain control over how others view the victim (in terms of gender recognition). Abusers may also threaten to “out” victims to friends, family, and employers (Guadalupe-Diaz & Jasinski, 2017). The threatening of one’s identity is a unique form of abuse that transgender victims may deal with – and which social service agencies and current legal systems do not know how to handle.
Theories of T-IPV
One theory that may explain the issue of T-IPV is the honor-based violence theory. This theory argues that cisgender people who are transphobic or accept transphobic beliefs and stereotypes may be more likely to perpetuate IPV towards a transgender partner to “disassociate” themselves from the stigma surrounding being transgender (Messinger, 2021). This works to protect the abuser’s societal privilege as a cisgender person. Some qualitative research indicates that cisgender abusers may express transphobic statements toward their transgender partners (Cook-Daniels, 2015). Analyzing a variety of sources, Messinger (2021) found that 30% of transgender people reported a cisgender partner stopping them from disclosing their status as transgender, 30% reported a cisgender partner preventing them from expressing their gender through physical appearance, and 7% had a cisgender partner prevent them from receiving gender-affirming healthcare. Additionally, in a study comprised of 97 transgender individuals assigned male at birth, 10.3% experienced IPV due to their status as a transgender person (Shipherd et al., 2011). Further research is needed to better develop this theory and provide more evidence as to how exactly transphobia plays a role in T-IPV in cisgender and transgender partnerships since it does not adequately explain intimate partner violence perpetrated by other transgender individuals.
To explain transgender individuals as abusers, Messinger (2020) points to disempowerment theory and minority stress theory. Disempowerment theory states that because some people feel disempowered by societal discrimination, those individuals perpetrate IPV to regain a sense of power and control in their lives. Minority stress theory states that those who feel extreme stress due to societal discrimination abuse others to relieve this aggression (Messinger, 2020). Disempowerment theory and minority stress theory are very similar but differ in the reason why an individual may be abusive; it is the difference between gaining a sense of power and control and expressing stress and frustration. These theories are supported by limited research, such as Nicola Brown’s (2007) study, which found some transgender abusers cited the stress of transphobia and transitioning as a reason why they abused their partners. Yet Messinger (2020) points out that abusers may be exaggerating their stress to rationalize their behavior.
Challenges Within the U.S. Legal System
In the U.S. legal system, transgender people face concerns about whether local police will believe them if they seek help from law enforcement. This is due, in part, to their distance from what society tends to think the “perfect” victim of IPV looks or acts like. Transgender people may also be concerned about making the queer and transgender communities look bad by reporting IPV (Leslie et al., 2022), and they might not see themselves as victims of IPV in the first place (Guadalupe-Diaz & Jasinski, 2017). These various factors prevent transgender people from seeking help from law enforcement, and currently available legal options, such as mandatory arrests and no-drop prosecution policies, are often inadequate for serving transgender people.
Mandatory Arrests
The legal case of Thurman v. City of Torrington<a id="_ftnref1" href="#_ftn1">[1]</a> pushed many states to pass mandatory arrest laws in the case of intimate partner violence. Mandatory arrest laws state that when a police officer is summoned to a scene for a case of domestic violence, an arrest must be made.<a id="_ftnref2" href="#_ftn2">[2]</a> Mandatory arrest policies attempt to immediately remove an abuser and provide respite to the victim(s). It is expected that this will allow for a “cool off period” between the couple. These laws also force police officers to take IPV seriously rather than treating it as a private matter. However, research has found that arrest does not significantly reduce intimate partner violence (Garcia & McManimon, 2011; Washington State Institute for Public Policy, 2022). Instead, it often leads to more social inequality and injustice. For instance, arrest rates for women have gone up in intimate partner violence calls. Venessa Garcia and Patrick McManimon (2011) found that women are more likely to be arrested when the women violate norms and stereotypes or act outside of gender roles. Perceived hostility toward police also increases the risk of arrest, and racial minorities in the United States are frequently concerned that the police will respond in a racist way and will not take their victimization seriously (Garcia & McManimon, 2011). Additionally, victims might not want the perpetrator to be arrested and simply want the violence to stop at that moment. An arrest may also cause the abuser to abuse their victim more severely in the future, and the victim may be reluctant to contact the police again because they do not want to suffer another bout of abuse. Transgender people also report concerns that the police will not take their victimization seriously (Guadalupe-Diaz & Jasinski, 2017). This results in a general distrust of the U.S. legal system among the transgender community.
Distrust of the Legal System
Due to distrust in the police, transgender individuals are less likely to reach out for help through formal legal processes. The 2015 United States Transgender Survey Report found that in Missouri, 61% of respondents who interacted with police (when the police knew the individual was transgender or suspected such) experienced some form of mistreatment. This included, but was not limited to, verbal harassment, misgendering, and physical and sexual assault. As a result of such discrimination, transgender people are very hesitant to contact them, with 56% saying they would be uncomfortable seeking help from the police (National Center for Transgender Equality, 2017).
Society also tends to assign greater value to circumstances that depict IPV survivors as “real” or “perfect” victims of violence. Garcia and McManimon (2011) characterize the “perfect” victim who is deserving of justice and support as a passive woman who still manages to resist her abuser. She stands by her boyfriend or husband but also must attempt to escape the violence. They conclude by suggesting that when individuals “behave outside of these social constructs, they are not recognized as innocent victims” (Garcia and McManimon, 2011, p. 16). As transgender people defy social conventions of what a man or woman is supposed to be, transgender people find it even more difficult than their cisgender counterparts for their concerns about IPV to be taken seriously. This becomes even more difficult when the victim is a person of color. Sharon Angella Allard (1991) writes that theories of battered women’s syndrome use a definition of women that is “based upon limited societal constructs of appropriate behavior for white women” (p. 194). Because women of color are not afforded the same opportunities as white women in how they are treated in cases of IPV, we can conclude that transgender women are likely to not be awarded the same opportunities as cisgender women since transgender women also do not align with what society judges a “perfect victim” to look like.
No-Drop Prosecution
No-drop prosecution laws were established in response to domestic violence victims’ reluctance to cooperate with prosecutors due to fears of retaliatory violence. These policies prevent victims from dropping charges and require prosecutors to use evidence-based prosecution. Garcia and McManimon (2011) favor no-drop prosecution because it shows offenders that intimidation tactics will not work to dissuade victims from pressing charges. No-drop prosecution can be helpful for cisgender survivors, but transgender survivors are more likely to be revictimized and retraumatized through the legal process. Forms of IPV specific to the transgender community, such as identity abuse, are not illegal and do not offer legal recourse for victims. This means that protective orders do not take identity abuse into consideration, making them an inaccessible means for transgender survivors to seek legal protection. Furthermore, if the survivor finds recourse in the legal system, they may face transphobic remarks from members of the court and be misgendered, and the court staff may be uncomfortable when the gender presentation of an individual does not match what is listed on identifying documents (Goodmark, 2020). Litigants are also referred to by their legal name, which can cause those who have not legally changed their name to become extremely uncomfortable. Transphobic strategies have also been used in litigation, such as suggesting that an individual is deceitful due to their transgender status and is thus lying about the abuse (Goodmark, 2020). Due to the unique challenges transgender people face in the legal system, no-drop prosecution, and the system as a whole, are inadequate at addressing the concerns of transgender victims of T-IPV.
Policy Recommendations and Conclusions
Solutions that focus on formal legal systems are often not accessible to transgender people facing intimate partner violence due to distrust of law enforcement by the transgender community. Mandatory arrest policies and no-drop prosecution are well-intended responses that have had some positive impacts. However, for transgender individuals, mandatory arrest policies involve frustrating encounters with police officers, who may or may not take their victimization and concerns seriously. No-drop prosecution also may entrench transgender individuals in legal situations wherein their preferred name and pronouns are disregarded or their identity as a transgender person is weaponized against them. New policies need to be implemented to better serve the transgender community, and alternatives must be put in place to support transgender victims of abuse and prevent and interrupt violence.
A violence intervention program, for instance, would be a useful alternative to calling the police. Such a program would employ credible messengers to respond to domestic violence calls<a href="#_ftn3" id="_ftnref3">[3]</a>. In the instance that there is an episode of domestic violence, a phone call could be placed to a violence interruption center, which would then send an individual (credible messenger) to the residence to mediate the dispute, support the victim, and develop next steps. Transgender individuals would positively benefit from an IPV interruption program as it would have a trusted community member arriving first to the scene instead of a member of law enforcement, which decreases the concern of police violence or police not taking the victim seriously. This is not to say that there would not be situations in which additional levels of care would be necessary – situations would still arise in which calling for police or EMTs to address physical harm would be a more appropriate option than a violence intervention program. However, this program would first allow a credible messenger to visit the residence and address the situation before deciding if it needs to be escalated to law enforcement and/or EMTs involvement. This approach might work better than previous policies because it gives victims more agency over what they want the next steps to be and allows someone with similar life experience (also a member of the transgender community) to help resolve the dispute. This recommendation comes from a radical reform framework, which calls for the shrinking of the system doing harm (in this case, the police) as well as building and shifting power into the hands of those who are directly impacted (Stahly-Butts & Akbar, 2022).
The implementation of a violence intervention program for T-IPV would allow transgender victims to disrupt the abuse they are facing without having to involve the legal and carceral systems. Additional research is needed on the successes of violence intervention programs and how they could be best adapted to address domestic violence. Additional training and funding aimed at interrupting cycles of abuse and cultivating safer options for transgender community members would then be needed for violence intervention programs to make this transition. Trans people cannot wait for the policing and legal systems to be transformed; safety is an immediate need. Violence prevention programming allows for immediate action that can prevent future abuse and mitigate current harm.
References
Allard, S. A. (1991). Rethinking Battered Woman Syndrome: A Black Feminist Perspective. UCLA Women’s Law Journal, 1, 191-207.
Brown, N. (2007). Stories from outside the frame: Intimate partner abuse in sexual-minority women’s relationships with transsexual men. Feminism and Psychology, 17(3), 373-393.
City of Saint Louis. (n.d.). Community Violence Intervention Strategy. Retrieved from https://www.stlouis-mo.gov/government/departments/public-safety/violence-prevention/cure-violence/index.cfm.
Garcia, V. & McManimon, P. (2011). Gendered Justice: Intimate Partner Violence and the Criminal Justice System. New York: Rowman & Littlefield Publishers, Inc.
Goldenberg, T., Jadwin-Cakmak, L., & Harper, G. W. (2018). Intimate Partner Violence Among Transgender Youth: Associations with Intrapersonal and Structural Factors. Violence and Gender 5(1), 19-25.
Goodmark, L. (2020). Legal System Reform. In A. E. Messinger and X. L. Guadalupe-Diaz (Eds.), Transgender Intimate Partner Violence: A Comprehensive Introduction (pp. 258-277). New York: New York University Press.
Guadalupe-Diaz, X. L. & Jasinski, J. (2017). “I Wasn’t a Priority, I Wasn’t a Victim”: Challenges in Help Seeking for Transgender Survivors of Intimate Partner Violence. Violence Against Women, 23(6), 772-792.
Koontz, A. (2020). Undermining Transgender Survivors. In A. E. Messinger and X. L. Guadalupe-Diaz (Eds.), Transgender Intimate Partner Violence: A Comprehensive Introduction (pp. 62-87). New York: New York University Press.
Leslie, A., Rea, M., Belawski, S. E., & Sojka, C. J, (2022). Intimate Relationships. In L. Erickson-Schroth (Ed.), Trans Bodies, Trans Selves: A Resource By and For Transgender Communities, 2nd edition (pp. 413-437). Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Messinger, A. M. (2020). Theorizing on the Roots of T-IPV. In A. E. Messinger and X. L. Guadalupe-Diaz (Eds.), Transgender Intimate Partner Violence: A Comprehensive Introduction (pp. 110-132). New York: New York University Press.
National Center for Transgender Equality. (2017). 2015 U.S. Transgender Survey: Missouri State Report. (2017). Retrieved from https://transequality.org/sites/default/files/docs/usts/USTSMOStateReport(1017).pdf.
Shipherd, J. C., Maguen, S. Skidmore, W. C., & Abramovitz, S. M. (2011). Potentially traumatic events in a transgender sample: frequency and associated symptoms. Traumatology 17(2), 56-67.
Smith, S. G., Zhang, X., Merrick, M. T., Wang, J., Kresnow, M., & Chen, J. (2018). The National Intimate Partner and Sexual Violence Survey (NISVS): 2015 Data Brief–Updated Release. Atlanta: National Center for Injury Prevention and Control, Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
Stahly-Butts, M. & Akbar, A. A. (2022). Reform for Radicals? An Abolitionist Framework. UCLA Law Review, 68, 1546-1583.
Turell, S. C. (2000). A descriptive analysis of same-sex relationship violence for a diverse sample. Journal of Family Violence, 15(3), 281-293.
Washington State Institute for Public Policy. (2022). Mandatory Arrest for Domestic Violence: A Systematic Review. Retrieved from https://www.wsipp.wa.gov/ReportFile/1747/Wsipp_Mandatory-Arrest-for-Domestic-Violence-A-Systematic-Review_Report.pdf.
Woulfe, J. M. & Goodman, L. A. (2018). Identity Abuse as a Tactic of Violence in LGBTQ Communities: Initial Validation of the Identity Abuse Measure. Journal of Interpersonal Violence, 36(5-6), 2656-2676.
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Righting Wrongs: A Journal of Human Rights is an academic journal that provides space for undergraduate students to explore human rights issues, challenge current actions and frameworks, and engage in problem-solving aimed at tackling some of the world’s most pressing issues. This open-access journal is available online at www.webster.edu/rightingwrongs.
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<a href="#_ftnref1" id="_ftn1">[1]</a> Tracey Thurman was attacked multiple times over the course of eight months by her husband, Charles, but her reports to the police were consistently ignored. Charles approached Tracey’s house on June 10, 1983, and she called the police. Charles then stabbed Tracey repeatedly. When the police arrived, Charles kicked Tracey in the head, threatened her, and dropped her son on her. Only after Tracey was loaded onto a stretcher was Charles arrested. Tracey sued the City of Torrington and the Torrington police department for violation of civil rights by “not performing and poorly performing their duty” (Garcia & McManimon, 2011, p. 89). The courts found that the city of Torrington had a policy of “noninterference” in domestic violence situations, which was a violation of the Fourteenth Amendment of the U.S. Constitution.
<a href="#_ftnref2" id="_ftn2">[2]</a> However, some U.S. states do not currently have a mandatory arrest policy. When the police are called for a domestic dispute in Missouri, for example, they do not have to make an arrest. If a police officer chooses to not make an arrest, they must make a detailed report explaining why no arrest was made. If an officer responds to the residence for a second time in a twelve-hour period, the primary aggressor must be identified, and an arrest must be made.
<a href="#_ftnref3" id="_ftn3">[3]</a> Although a program such as this has not been tested regarding intimate partner violence, there have been similar successful programs that address gun violence in U.S. communities. Saint Louis, Missouri, has utilized a Cure Violence program in the neighborhoods of Wells Goodfellow, Hamilton Heights, Dutchtown, and Walnut Park. In March 2023, 25 conflicts (involving 163 individuals in total) were mediated, resulting in 44% being resolved, 44% being conditionally resolved, and 12% remaining unresolved (City of Saint Louis, n.d.).
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<title>Recidivism Among Drug Offenders: The Impacts of Drug Courts and Prop 36</title>
<link>https://blogs.webster.edu/humanrights/2023/12/01/recidivism-among-drug-offenders-the-impacts-of-drug-courts-and-prop-36/</link>
<comments>https://blogs.webster.edu/humanrights/2023/12/01/recidivism-among-drug-offenders-the-impacts-of-drug-courts-and-prop-36/#respond</comments>
<dc:creator><![CDATA[lkingston54]]></dc:creator>
<pubDate>Fri, 01 Dec 2023 21:59:21 +0000</pubDate>
<category><![CDATA[Volume XIII, Issue 2]]></category>
<guid isPermaLink="false">https://blogs.webster.edu/humanrights/?p=1411</guid>
<description><![CDATA[Alex DeBourge, Webster University – Saint Louis Recidivism Among Drug Offenders: The Impacts of Drug Courts and Prop 36 [Download PDF] The United States’ criminal justice system is marked by a damaging cycle of drug offender recidivism where people are reconvicted but not treated for their addiction and substance use disorders. The effects of approaches […]]]></description>
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Alex DeBourge, Webster University – Saint Louis

Recidivism Among Drug Offenders: The Impacts of Drug Courts and Prop 36
[<a href="http://blogs.webster.edu/humanrights/files/DeBourge_Recidivism-Among-Drug-Offenders.pdf" data-type="link" data-id="http://blogs.webster.edu/humanrights/files/DeBourge_Recidivism-Among-Drug-Offenders.pdf">Download PDF</a>]
The United States’ criminal justice system is marked by a damaging cycle of drug offender recidivism where people are reconvicted but not treated for their addiction and substance use disorders. The effects of approaches such as the U.S. “War on Drugs” are still experienced today as drug offenders have limited opportunities to receive treatment and experience racial disparities and negative environments that promote their drug use. Labeling theory and social control theory assist in explaining the existence and persistence of drug offender recidivism and guide policy demands that attempt to resolve it. Drug courts and policy modifications like Proposition 36 to the Three Strikes Law are policy implications that make a difference for drug offenders, but they still present certain challenges.
The problem of drug abuse in the United States has been addressed by the U.S. government in various ways over the last several decades, yet the issue remains a prevalent concern for many people. The opioid epidemic alone has caused around 50,000 deaths and led to millions of citizens having opioid use disorders (Zhang et al., 2022). There is also controversy over how people who use drugs are treated in the U.S. criminal justice system. Drug users have been found to come into greater contact with the system than most groups (Jamin et al., 2021). When they leave the system, usually after finishing a period of incarceration,<a href="#_ftn1" id="_ftnref1">[1]</a> they have not been rehabilitated for their drug use and have not received help from the medical system. As a result, drug offenders’ mortality rates from overdoses and other drug-related deaths are high (Jamin et al., 2021). Drug offenders in prison may become more addicted; research shows that drugs frequently move in and out of prisons, exposing inmates to limited options of hard drugs (Watson, 2016). Sharing needles becomes a common activity with such limited access, while increased securitized search procedures often lead to a decline in visitors and negative consequences for prisoners’ social well-being. Imprisonment can also lead to repeat offenses and incarceration for drug offenders (Mitchell et al., 2017).
Increases in the U.S. prison population are partly caused by the influx of drug offenders entering the criminal justice system, with Black men being the most disproportionately targeted (Rowell, 2012). A catalyst of this problem has been the “War on Drugs,” which put Black people in prison at higher rates than white people despite similar rates of drug use (Nicosia et al., 2017). Under this initiative, drug penalties included harsh and often mandatory sentences. Numerous factors contribute to racial disparities related to drug prosecution, including one’s criminal history, increased policing, and lower access to wealth, employment, housing, and education – which all leads to reduced life chances and access to quality legal representation (Nicosia et al., 2017). There are many factors that explain why racial disparities exist in drug offending, but a lack of resources for addressing drug use is partly what causes recidivism to be experienced across racial and ethnic demographics.
This paper focuses on the issue of drug offender recidivism – the tendency of a convicted criminal to reoffend. The U.S. criminal justice system perpetuates a damaging cycle of drug offender recidivism that is marked by racial inequities and centers on punishment rather than treating people for addiction and health disorders. The effects of initiatives such as the “War on Drugs” continue to be felt by drug offenders who face limited opportunities to access treatment, experience racial disparities, and are challenged to survive in negative environments that promote their continued drug use. Theories such as “labeling theory” and “social control theory” help explain the existence and persistence of drug offender recidivism, while initiatives such as the use of drug courts and California’s Proposition 36 offer lessons for enacting change.
Race and Drug Offender Recidivism in the United States
Research highlights racial disparities related to U.S. drug offenses. For instance, researchers collected quantitative data on Black and white males’ criminal records from 1995 to 2005 from California’s Automated Criminal History System – that is, right before harsher penalties were imposed as part of California’s controversial “Three Strikes Law” (Nicosia et al., 2017). They investigated the drug offenders’ outcome (prison, drug treatment, etc.), case characteristics, criminal history, demographics, and time and location. They found that while both Black and white men had declined rates of prison sentences, Black men were 17% more likely to be sentenced to prison compared to similarly situated white men. It is important to note that the reduced racial disparities between Black and white men from 2010 to 2013 may be due to the nationwide effort to reduce prison overcrowding (Nicosia et al., 2017). Black men were also 43% less likely to be sentenced to drug treatment, despite new state laws improving overall access to it (Nicosia et al., 2017). The severity of the crime and the criminal record had an influence on the length of prison sentence, but research shows that there are other variables that create the sentencing differences between Black and white people (Nicosia et al., 2017).
Another study surveyed and interviewed 134 Black males from a maximum-security correctional facility about their socio-demographics, probation and parole status, drug history, and drug use in prison (Rowell et al., 2012). Researchers found drug use still occurs in prison (25% of participants claimed to use drugs during incarceration). If they had a history of extensive drug use before entering prison, or if their prison sentence was lengthy, the more likely it became that they used drugs in prison (Rowell et al., 2012). If the participant was actively on parole or probation at the time of the arrest, they were less likely to use drugs while in prison (Rowell et al., 2012). Based on prior evidence, drug treatment programs within prisons would have the positive effects of reducing drug use, offender misconduct, and involvement in illegal activities upon release (Rowell et al., 2012).
Theoretical Approaches
Labeling theory and social control theory help explain the existence and persistence of drug offender recidivism.“Labeling theory” predicts that once a person is labelled for their deviant behaviors, they embody the label because that is how society views them. Drug users, for example, may cycle through criminal activity because that is what is expected of them. Drugs are highly stigmatized from U.S. initiatives like the War on Drugs – an ongoing government initiative that began in the 1970s and aims to stop illegal drug use and distribution by dramatically increasing prison sentences for both drug dealers and users (History, 2019) – creating moral panic for citizens (Nicosia et al., 2017). Labeling theory notes that inequality in society takes small deviances and amplifies them into criminal attributes. It acknowledges the historical context of drug use and considers how policies and institutions are built around the labels that permeate U.S. society. Once these labels are institutionalized, they are difficult to reverse; for instance, prisons and courts deal with drug users as criminals rather than people facing addiction and illness. These people do not receive the treatment they need to get better because their futures are intertwined with stereotypes about drug users and “criminals” in general.
According to labeling theory, racial disparities persist when moral entrepreneurs create a perceived threat of race-based crime and direct social control toward specific racial communities. An example of this is imposing severe criminal penalties for crack use and sale compared to cocaine; cocaine has been traditionally used more by white Americans and crack by Black Americans, but they are essentially the same drug (Mitchell, 2009). By placing heavier penalties on crack, the U.S. criminal justice system labeled crack (and Black users) as more destructive and threatening than cocaine (and white users). Labeling theory is also apparent in the evolving criminalization of marijuana being used to control minority groups and disrupt their communities, which has perpetuated stigmas for decades (TruTV, 2016). The labeling of racial groups as threatening enables law enforcement to go after low level drug offenders by focusing on racial differences and stereotypes related to drug usage (Mitchell, 2009).
Another relevant theory is “social control theory,” which predicts that frustration towards one’s own social injustices motivates delinquency and diminishes social bonds, thus further motivating someone to violate group norms (Unlu et al., 2021). Social bonds that can be destroyed are attachment to people, commitment to obligations and goals, involvement in social activities, and common beliefs shared in the community. The abandonment of one’s bonds stems from perceived social injustice that prevents someone from achieving positively valued goals. Policies that disproportionately effect a racial group, like the War on Drugs, limit a person’s ability to thrive in the same way as others (Nicosia et al., 2017). From the social control perspective, convicted drug offenders are taken away from positively valued goals (such as supporting their family through work) and are worse-off in society after they are released from prison. This all may lead to greater frustration and drug dependency in response to such social strains, especially if they react negatively to pressures to correct their lifestyles and align with group values.
Responding to Recidivism
Two existing responses to recidivism offer possibilities for future progress and policy change: Drug courts and California’s Proposition 36. First, Drug courts have been used to combat drug offender recidivism since 1989. Originating in Miami, Florida, they have spread throughout the country and now number a few thousand across the United States (Gallagher et al., 2020). This bipartisan approach is unique because it satisfies the needs of offenders, the courts, and the community. They are frequently viewed as a cost-efficient way to engage community leaders, rehabilitate drug offenders, and avoid future overdoses and incarceration. Looking at drug courts from the perspective of labeling theory, the goal is to change the self- and social labels of participants. Second, The Substance Abuse and Crime Prevention Act of 2000, more commonly referred to as California Proposition 36 (or Prop 36), was passed by California voters in 2000. It mandates drug treatment sentences rather than jail time for certain qualifying offenses and defendants (Eisner Gorin LLP, n.d.). Research suggests that Prop 36 reduces drug offenses and recidivism while saving the state money. As other U.S. states implement or consider similar programs, this policy is worth exploring with an eye toward national implementation.
Drug Courts
Drug courts focus on people charged with drug offenses who have substance use disorders or are determined by the justice system to have a higher likelihood of reoffending and aim to keep offenders clean from drug use once they are released. Drug courts have short, medium, and long-term goals centered on keeping offenders invested in the treatment process. These courts strive to give people a more positive experience of the criminal justice system by connecting them to supportive outside organizations, utilizing frequent drug testing, providing incentives, and increasing communication between participants and judges (Gallagher et al., 2020). Judges and attorneys play central roles in creating drug court opportunities, and drug court teams (which consist of community organization leaders such as medical and mental health professionals) report progress directly to the judge (Gallagher et al., 2020). Police officers routinely check up on participants at their homes, while employers and/or educators help ensure participation (Gallagher et al., 2020).
Drug courts are made available to qualifying participants after they have made a plea agreement and been sentenced, offering an alternative to their original prison sentence. If the participant agrees to the comprehensive and tough program, they will receive a lower or more lenient sentence upon completion. If they refuse or fail to complete the program, they are given their original sentence (Rivier, 2021). Initially, participants sign the drug court contract and then share stories with the judge about their addiction identities (Rivier et al., 2021). The program consists of required phases that include stabilization, intensive treatment, and transition. Participants meet regularly with the judge to share their progress in the program through essay writing, treatment evaluation, community service, self-help groups, celebrating accomplishments in employment and education, and other milestones (Rivier et al., 2021). Noncompliance leads to penalties that require extra commitment to the program, with excessive negative behavior leading to expulsion. Drug court programs take around one to two years to complete (Rivier et al., 2021).
Individuals who pass the program have been shown to reoffend at a lower rate than individuals who underwent probation or failed drug court. Factors that increase success include educational and occupation opportunities, medical care, and mental health treatment (Gallagher et al., 2020). Although many potential participants do not complete the drug court program, those who are enrolled for at least 15 months are 63% more likely to complete the program and five times more likely to be reunited with their children in family drug courts (Logsdon et al., 2021). While the cost of the program is approximately $187,000, it saves at least $168,000 overall for the state (Logsdon et al., 2021). Notably, however, data shows that juvenile drug courts do not have similar impacts on lowering recidivism (Sullivan et al., 2016). Other demographic variables change the program’s effectiveness, too; lower recidivism was more prominent among women, older individuals, minorities, and those with serious criminal records (Brown, 2011).
Research from across the United States illustrates the potential positive impacts of drug courts. Participants of a drug court in Dane County, Wisconsin, were less likely to commit a new crime than those who did not go through the program (Brown, 2011). Even those in the program who did repeat an offense (on average of 614 days after end of program) experienced a lower sentence than the other group (on average of 463 days after end of sentence). A qualitative study from a drug court in central Florida found that one-fifth of participants stopped using drugs and a majority decreased their substance use (Francis & Abel, 2014). Additional evidence reveals that these participants received other benefits, like learning about their addictions and becoming motivated to continue school or get a job. Notably, one big issue for non-completers was the financial cost of drug treatment, such as having to come in multiple times a week to get a drug test (Francis & Abel, 2014).
However, drug courts come with limitations involving racial disparity and inattention to mental health challenges. Research highlights that white offenders are more likely to receive drug treatment, for instance. Drug courts are more effective for individuals with criminal histories and higher risks of reoffending, yet white offenders with no criminal history are accepted into court programs at much higher rates than nonwhites (Gallagher et al., 2020). (Researchers attribute this to the fact that criminal histories that include a prior felony conviction might disqualify participants from drug court. This is problematic because those with a high risk of re-offending would likely benefit more from program participation; Gallagher et al., 2020.) Another limitation includes the accuracy with which the program treats individuals for their needs. Some participants noted that their mental illness was not appropriately treated, which led to their failure in the program (Gallagher et al., 2018).
California’s Proposition 36
Another approach to resolving the issue of drug offender recidivism is modifying mandatory sentencing laws to incorporate possibilities for drug treatment and rehabilitation. This policy was implemented in 2001 in California with the goal of diminishing racial disparities in drug offender sentencing. It focused on nonviolent drug offenders, thereby leveraging incarceration against violent offenders, reducing drug-related crimes to keep the public safe, and improving public health (Nicosia et al., 2017). Since then, some states have adopted similarly intentioned policies. Under California’s Proposition 36, any adult on their first- or second-time drug offense receives drug treatment along with probation instead of incarceration or probation alone. This intervention can reduce the recidivism rate because it tackles the root causes of criminality and prevents further offenses. Instead of the severe punishments that the mandatory sentencing embodies, this approach aims to rehabilitate offenders. Drug treatment emphasizes the power of labels and works with patients to articulate new labels for themselves. It also leads to positive social and behavioral changes that are deemed acceptable in the community and diminishes the odds of reoffending, whereas incarceration would reinforce negative labels once outside of prison.
Research shows that this policy has been effective in increasing the use of drug treatment for those involved in the criminal justice system. Proposition 36 created a 19% increase in odds for diversion for Black people compared to white people, but Black offenders still had a lower chance of receiving drug treatment or completing drug treatment programs overall. Therefore, racial disparity still exists despite positive policy changes (Nicosia et al., 2017). Still, Proposition 36 significantly decreased the likelihood of prison and jail sentences for all drug offenders (Nicosia et al., 2017). Of 50,000 Prop 36 participants in California drug treatment programs, 32-41% completed drug treatment with a lowered rate of re-arrest within a one-year span upon completion (Urada et al., 2011). Notably, this policy is also financially beneficial because although it costs $120 million annually, it saves $2.50 for every dollar spent on the program and saves $4 for every dollar spent on those who complete the program (Nicosia et al., 2017; Urada et al., 2011). This is intended to save taxpayers $1.5 billion over a five-year span (Auerhahn, 2004).
Despite these positive points, Proposition 36’s success has been limited in a few ways. As noted, there is still a racial disparity for drug offenders that needs to be addressed, and it only somewhat limits the growth of the drug offender population (Auerhahn, 2004). It is also worth noting that that drug courts were previously implemented in California and led to a decline of drug offenders in prison, so it is difficult to measure what impacts stem from Prop 36 and which can be attributed to the courts (Gallagher et al., 2020).
Conclusions
Approaches such as drug courts and California’s Proposition 36 move the criminal justice system in the right direction toward reducing drug offender recidivism. Both options offer an alternative to incarceration, and they have produced positive results for lowered recidivism rates among drug offenders. Indeed, we know that drug offenders in prison are likely to be reconvicted unless drug treatment accompanies their sentence (Mitchell et al., 2017). Based on my research, I favor drug courts because they help limit the prison population growth by placing people into treatment programs rather than prison cells and promote collective efficacy by incorporating community institutions to assist the criminal justice system. They also place drug offenders in an environment where they are surrounded by opportunity rather than being in prison, where they are separated from their family and communities and are at higher risk for drug use and overdose (Mitchell et al., 2017). Yet both approaches are valuable because they utilize drug treatment and address root causes of crime and incarceration.
While drug courts and Prop 36 are useful, there is room for improvement. Stakeholders should consistently reevaluate these policies to ensure that everyone has access to the help they need, and these actions must be collaborative and transparent. Current problems, such as racial disparities that persist in accessing treatment, must be addressed. These approaches should also be combined with other practices, such as addressing security gaps in prisons that allow drugs and needles to be smuggled in. Since many people overdose after being released from prison, it is also important that support systems are in place for the first few months after re-entering society; there should not be a gap in access to resources and social connections after incarceration ends.
The problem of drug offender recidivism needs our utmost attention because it is damaging our communities in significant and complex ways. It is not an easy fix and will take time and a collective effort to resolve this issue. The movement to rehabilitate drug offenders goes beyond the criminal justice system and it represents a shifting belief in society where we address the root causes of our social problems.
References
Auerhahn, K. (2004). California’s Incarcerated Drug Offender Population, Yesterday, Today, and Tomorrow: Evaluating the War on Drugs and Proposition 36. Journal of Drug Issues, 34(1), 95-120.                                                                                                                                       <a href="https://doi-org.library3.webster.edu/10.1177/002204260403400105"></a>
Brown, R. (2011). Drug Court Effectiveness: A Matched Cohort Study in the Dane County Drug Treatment Court. Journal of Offender Rehabilitation, 50(4), 191-201.
Eisner Gorin LLP. (n.d.). California Proposition 36 – Drug Treatment Program Rather Than Jail Time. Retrieved from https://www.egattorneys.com/drug-crimes/proposition-36.
Francis, T. R., & Abel, E. M. (2014). Redefining Success: A Qualitative Investigation of Therapeutic Outcomes for Noncompleting Drug Court Clients. Journal of Social Service Research, 40(3), 325–338.
Gallagher, J. R., Nordberg, A., & Gallagher, J. M. (2018). Participants’ views on the strengths and limitations of drug court: Recommendations to enhance assessment and treatment of mental illnesses. Social Work in Mental Health, 16(4), 436-450.
Gallagher, J. R., Wahler, E. A., & Lefebvre, E. (2020). Further Evidence of Racial Disparities in Drug Court Outcomes: Enhancing Service-Delivery to Reduce Criminal Recidivism Rates for Non-White Participants. Journal of Social Service Research, 46(3), 406-415.
History. (2019, December 17). The War on Drugs. Retrieved from https://www.history.com/topics/crime/the-war-on-drugs.
Jamin, D., Vanderplasschen, W., Sys, O., Jauffret-Roustide, M., Michel, L., Trouiller, P., Neisa, A., Homen, M., Mendes, V., & Stöver, H. (2021). “My first 48 hours out”: Drug users’ perspectives on challenges and strategies upon release from prison. Harm Reduction Journal, 18. <a href="https://doi-org.library3.webster.edu/10.1186/s12954-021-00480-w"></a>
Logsdon, A. R., Antle, B. F., & Kamer, C. (2021). Family Treatment Drug Court Cost Analysis: An In-depth Look at the Cost and Savings of a Southeastern Family Treatment Drug Court. Child Welfare, 99(5), 51-74.
Mitchell, O. (2009). Is the War on Drugs Racially Biased? Journal of Crime & Justice, 32(2), 49-75. <a href="https://doi-org.library3.webster.edu/10.1080/0735648X.2009.9721270"></a>
Mitchell, O., Cochran, J., Mears, D., & Bales, W. (2017). The effectiveness of prison for reducing drug offender recidivism: a regression discontinuity analysis. Journal of Experimental Criminology, 13(1), 1-27.
Nicosia, N., MacDonald, J., & Pacula, R. (2017). Does Mandatory Diversion to Drug Treatment Eliminate Racial Disparities in the Incarceration of Drug Offenders? An Examination of California’s Proposition 36. Journal of Quantitative Criminology, 33(1), 179-205.
Revier, K. (2021). “Without Drug Court, You’ll End Up in Prison or Dead”: Therapeutic Surveillance and Addiction Narratives in Treatment Court. Critical Criminology, 29(4), 915-930. <a href="https://doi-org.library3.webster.edu/10.1007/s10612-021-09592-y"></a>
Rowell, T. L., Wu, E., Hart, C. L., Haile, R., & El-Bassel, N. (2012). Predictors of Drug Use in Prison among Incarcerated Black Men. American Journal of Drug & Alcohol Abuse, 38(6), 593-597.
Sullivan, C. J., Blair, L., Latessa, E., & Sullivan, C. C. (2016). “Juvenile Drug Courts and Recidivism: Results from a Multisite Outcome Study.” JQ: Justice Quarterly, 33(2), 291-318. <a href="https://doi-org.library3.webster.edu/10.1080/07418825.2014.908937"></a>
TruTV. (2016). Adam Ruins Everything – The Sinister Reason Weed is Illegal. YouTube. Retrieved from https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sXPOw2unxy0.
Unlu, A., Ekici, N., Taskgin, S., & Entzminger, P. (2021). An empirical test of age-graded informal social control theory: New correlates of youth deviance. Crime & Delinquency, 67(2), 179-211.
Urada, D., Gardener, C., & Anglin, M. D. (2011). Stakeholder Consensus and Circumvention in Drug Diversion Programs: Findings from California’s Substance Abuse and Crime Prevention Act (Proposition 36). Journal of Drug Issues, 41(1), 45-67.
Watson, T. M. (2016). The Elusive Goal of Drug-Free Prisons. Substance Use & Misuse, 51(1), 91-103. <a href="https://doi-org.library3.webster.edu/10.3109/10826084.2015.1089907"></a>
Zhang, A., Balles, J. A., Nyland, J. E., Nguyen, T. H., White, V. M., & Zgierska, A. E. (2022). The relationship between police contacts for drug use-related crime and future arrests, incarceration, and overdoses: a retrospective observational study highlighting the need to break the vicious cycle. Harm Reduction Journal, 19(1), 1-10.
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Righting Wrongs: A Journal of Human Rights is an academic journal that provides space for undergraduate students to explore human rights issues, challenge current actions and frameworks, and engage in problem-solving aimed at tackling some of the world’s most pressing issues. This open-access journal is available online at www.webster.edu/rightingwrongs.
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<a href="#_ftnref1" id="_ftn1">[1]</a> Incarceration, also termed incapacitation, is the imprisonment of criminals to prevent them from committing more crimes and harming the community. This form of punishment is the main outcome for U.S. drug offenders through the government’s “tough on crime” perspective. The focus on incarceration often means that drug users are abandoned by the system and institutions, their addictions are left untreated, and they are unprepared to re-enter society.
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<title>Healthcare Liberation for Fat, Black, Disabled Women</title>
<link>https://blogs.webster.edu/humanrights/2023/12/01/healthcare-liberation-for-fat-black-disabled-women-white-supremacy-in-the-american-medical-system/</link>
<comments>https://blogs.webster.edu/humanrights/2023/12/01/healthcare-liberation-for-fat-black-disabled-women-white-supremacy-in-the-american-medical-system/#respond</comments>
<dc:creator><![CDATA[lkingston54]]></dc:creator>
<pubDate>Fri, 01 Dec 2023 21:56:02 +0000</pubDate>
<category><![CDATA[Volume XIII, Issue 2]]></category>
<guid isPermaLink="false">https://blogs.webster.edu/humanrights/?p=1409</guid>
<description><![CDATA[Megan E. Fritz, Keene State College Healthcare Liberation for Fat, Black, Disabled Women: White Supremacy in the American Medical System [Download PDF] Systemic racism, sexism, disability discrimination, and weight bias impact Black women’s health. Living under structures of white supremacy is directly correlated with long-term health disparities. Layers of stress associated with living in an […]]]></description>
<content:encoded><![CDATA[
Megan E. Fritz, Keene State College

Healthcare Liberation for Fat, Black, Disabled Women: White Supremacy in the American Medical System
[<a href="http://blogs.webster.edu/humanrights/files/Fritz_Healthcare-Liberation.pdf" data-type="link" data-id="http://blogs.webster.edu/humanrights/files/Fritz_Healthcare-Liberation.pdf">Download PDF</a>]
Systemic racism, sexism, disability discrimination, and weight bias impact Black women’s health. Living under structures of white supremacy is directly correlated with long-term health disparities. Layers of stress associated with living in an ableist and fatphobic society increase negative health outcomes. This article shows how the intersection of race, gender, disability, and body weight deserves further interdisciplinary scholarship. Parallel discourses have emerged over the last few decades and lay a foundation for understanding the stress and trauma impacting healthcare delivery for women with intersecting identities and vulnerabilities.
The healthcare avoidance (and therefore the negative health outcomes) of fat, Black, and disabled women directly connect to white supremacy. While weight stigma, racism, ableism, and sexism have been researched, the medical community has ignored how these intersectional layers of oppression interact. Further research on how these interactions impact healthcare is crucial for improving standards of care. Black people and fat women, for instance, have high rates of healthcare avoidance and lack of trust in doctors, due in part to historical medical exploitation.
I argue that we need an intersectional understanding of various issues and identities to improve health care for Black women in the United States. First, I discuss the United States’ history of medical experimentation and health exploitation of Black people. This includes recognition of how the U.S. disability rights movement was largely led by white men and upheld pillars of white supremacy, which ensured the continuation of unique health inequities facing Black Americans. Second, I explore recent research centering on Cheryl Woods-Giscombe’s (2018) “Superwoman Schema” (SWS) to show how Black women’s daily stress affects their health. I also examine a “Fat Feminist Disability Framework”and discuss the importance of adding lenses of weight stigma and disability to form a more complete picture of American health care. Third, I analyze health care avoidance and how the knowledge of this phenomenon can lead to a reconceptualization of the American medical paradigm. Ultimately, this article shows the need to examine white supremacy in the U.S. medical system and how various forms of discrimination impact the health outcomes of fat, Black, disabled women.
Historical Context
Harriet Washington’s (2006) coining of the term “black iatrophobia” to describe the unique fear and avoidance of medical care by the Black community has been under-utilized despite its value to medical scholarship. When searching “iatrophobia” in WorldCat, EBSCO, and other scholarly databases, the limited results do not include any articles that focused on Black health care avoidance; the search term “black iatrophobia” netted zero results. Indeed, research using the keyword “iatrophobia” prior to the publication of Washington’s (2006) book Medical Apartheid was nonexistent. For example, some scholars use the term to discuss “white coat syndrome” and fear of needles regardless of race (see Stenehjem & Os, 2004; Murata et al., 2006; Martin & McGrath, 2014). Recently, Mara Hollander and Michele Greene (2019) called for further scholarship related to this term and an investigation of how fear of doctors and the health care system is affected by various identities. Importantly, iatrophobia is not irrational (as the original definition states), but is usually the result of trauma and negative past experiences with the medical community. However, Hollander and Greene (2019) neglect to even mention “black iatrophobia” or Washington’s (2006) argument that contemporary Black fear and avoidance of health care stems from historical medical abuse in the African American strata. Regardless of intent, the redefining of iatrophobia is one example of how white supremacy is perpetuated in contemporary medical science; Black women scholars such as Washington (2006) have constructed necessary knowledge, but white scholars and practitioners must use this knowledge to untangle white supremacy from medical institutions.
Popular understandings of how the health care industry has navigated race in the U.S. encourage black iatrophobia. The notorious Tuskegee Syphilis Study,<a id="_ftnref1" href="#_ftn1">[1]</a> for instance, has been widely discussed in popular culture through movies such as Miss Evers’ Boys and numerous podcasts (such as American Scandal and You’re Wrong About). The topic of medical exploitation of Black Americans often centers on Tuskegee and plays an oversized role in the American public imagination. (Once word got out about this study, the U.S. government halted the research and attempted to repair the damage by paying monetary damages and eventually offering a formal presidential apology in 1997. For some white Americans, Tuskegee is a distant memory that has been settled (Washington, 2006). The study was a blatantly racist and a eugenic abuse of power, yet Washington (2006) asserts that Tuskegee is only one of a “pattern of experimental abuse.” Further, “many African Americans understand it as such, because a rich oral tradition has sustained remembrances of pain, abuse, and humiliation at the hands of physicians” (Washington, 2006, p. 179).
Washington’s (2006) Medical Apartheid can be seen as a catalog of this pattern over the past 400 years, and it details the ways white people have tortured the Black body. Stolen Africans quickly learned they no longer had any autonomy as they were chained, starved, thrown overboard, and sold to the highest bidder. They had no right to care for themselves, to protect and care for their children, to adequate food and shelter, and no right to be treated as humans because they were not seen as human. Sick and elderly enslaved people were given, rented, sold, and traded to doctors who would administer experimental treatments prior to dispensing then-tested treatments to white people (Washington, 2006). Ironically, during a time when scientific racism was in full swing and white researchers believed that Black people were naturally inferior, physicians insisted on using their bodies to learn about white anatomy. The knowledge and trauma of these truths have been passed down generations through oral histories and in the DNA of descendants. Meanwhile, the experimentation and exploitation did not stop. For example: Consider Operation Sunshine and other radiation experiments that exploited poor, Black Americans, research on Black prisoners, XYY studies on young Black boys without their parents’ knowledge, the theft of Henrietta Lacks’ cells (which changed medical research forever), and the use of unconscious emergency room patients as experimental subjects without consent (see Washington, 2006). Government admission of racially based medical exploitation has been lackluster at best, occurring very rarely. Although these situations are much rarer in the United States than they used to be, Black people continue to be understandably wary of providers who may appear trustworthy at first glance (Washington, 2006). Almost two decades after the publishing of Washington’s (2006) Medical Apartheid, the U.S. government still has not confessed to various medical studies carried out with state funding.
It is frustrating that the social movement that could recognize and accommodate health concerns in relation to Blackness, the U.S. disability rights movement, has on the whole ignored issues of race. In response, I call for a critical reading of the disability rights movement in relation to the pillars of white supremacy. This is not to say that we need to disregard the good that has come from the Americans with Disabilities Act (ACT) and other related policies. Rather, I argue that we must recognize that white supremacy was intentional in the building of the United States and has influenced all of our institutions – and it will take just as much, if not more, intentionality to dismantle them. This includes, most certainly, U.S. medical institutions. While parts of the disability rights crusade were fashioned after civil rights actions (such as sit-ins) and certain actions were supported by the Black Panther Party and disabled Black people, we must consider how supremacy and white feminism impacted U.S. society’s understanding of disability and the laws that were created as a result. Tema Okun (2021) offers guidance by outlining several characteristics of white supremacy and how it can be seen in our behaviors and social structures: Perfectionism (believing we need to be perfect and others have to meet those standards of perfections, combined with being overly critical and unable to listen to different perspectives), paternalism (power holders assuming they are qualified to make decisions for others), either/or (presenting binary options such as right/wrong or with us/against us), progress is bigger/more (measuring progress with wealth and power), urgency (a sense of emergency facilitates the abuse of power), and individualism characteristics (the assumption that people should be able to do everything for themselves without assistance or accommodations). Exploring the connections between the disability rights movement and white supremacy will help us understand how society ignores fat, Black, disabled women’s experiences.
Recent Research: Linking the Superwoman Schema to Healthcare Avoidance
While the U.S. history of medical exploitation and the disability rights movement is important to this discussion, recent research contributions regarding Black women’s health outcomes help us connect the past to the present-day. Woods-Giscombe (2018) generated the “Superwoman Schema” (SWS) to understand how the daily stress of microaggressions and overt racism interacts with Black culture and creates health disparities such as cardiovascular disease, diabetes, and high blood pressure. In the American culture of racism, the expectations placed on Black women create a feedback loop in which the stress they embody increases the health conditions they experience, in turn causing more stress. The SWS describes a mental model of how Black women show up for everyone in their communities except themselves (Woods-Giscombe, 2018). The framework consists of five major features that describe Black women’s perceived obligations: “to present an image of strength, suppress emotions, resist dependence on others, succeed despite limited resources, and prioritize caregiving over self-care” (Woods-Giscombe, 2018, p. 338). Woods-Giscombe (2018) uses her schema at the University of North Carolina for her ongoing research on mindfulness meditation to educate Black women about self-care and to lower negative outcomes. Research into the connections between the SWS and emotional eating, inactivity, sleep issues, mental health, and other concerns for Black women is ongoing and advances the understanding of cultural paradigms and their effects on health disparities.
However, all of this knowledge does nothing if the patient continues to avoid visiting the doctor; the perception that doctors and hospitals are places where Black women will encounter oppression due to weight status, race, ability level, and gender should be taken seriously. Therefore, it is necessary to devise strategies to encourage women to enter the doctor’s office to begin with. Research reinforces the belief that American medical institutions need to educate providers in cultural competence so that delivery models become more productive. For instance, a study by Seanna Leath et al. (2021) made connections between adverse childhood events (ACES) and negative long-term health outcomes, the SWS, and psychological afflictions. The Centers for Disease Control (CDC) reported in 2021 that 16% of the general population reported a score of 4 or higher on the ACES screener – a measure of childhood abuse and household dysfunction that connects to leading causes of death in adults – while 34% of the sample of Black women in Leath et al.’s (2021) study had the same score. Leath et al. (2021) explain that SWS is a “double-edged sword” which acts as both “an asset and a vulnerability” in that it allows Black women to cope with chronic stress but also serves to mask long-term depression and anxiety because of the internal and outsider perception of Black women being strong (p. 318). The masking of mental health struggles, along with lack of help from outside their immediate community, can make it difficult for Black women to medically address their emotional well-being. Lack of treatment for the chronic stress that Black American women experience creates further stress and long-term health issues (Leath et al., 2021). These findings emphasize the importance of bringing a balanced and nuanced approach to studying health care in the United States that considers the whole person – including their traumas and lived experiences.
Though there have been advances in studying Black women’s health, research is still prone to weight stigma and posits fatness as problematic. Concepts of the ideal female body began with European colonizers projecting expectations of thinness onto African women, such as in the case of Saartjie Baartman<a id="_ftnref2" href="#_ftn2">[2]</a>. Research connects the SWS and Black women’s perceptions of barriers to weight management, for instance (Harris et al., 2022). These barriers are divided into categories of biological (genetics, lack of energy, medical conditions), psychological (lack of self-discipline, lack of motivation, self-conscious), and sociological (lack of access to a gym, financial issues, cultural food beliefs) reasoning for not being able to maintain a BMI of 25 or less. Charlie L. Harris et al. (2022) use weight management as an example of the self-care that is sometimes de-prioritized by Black women who feel pressure to exhibit strength and self-sacrifice for their families and communities. While this study does offer a lot of salient data, it is also an example of the overwhelming bias against larger bodies and the assumption that “obesity” is unhealthy. Rather than seeing weight as either a symptom of preexisting issues or an example of human variation, healthcare providers tend to see fatness as not only the cause of disease and illness, but as a disease unto itself. Harris et al. (2022) assume that women’s perceptions of “barriers to weight management” are factual rather than the result of internalized fatphobia. Fat women are used to having their pain and health concerns brushed aside with comments about how losing weight would alleviate these issues. What is the point of going to the doctor when an individual knows the provider is not going to take their needs seriously? If a health care visit means being humiliated and increased anxiety, it sometimes makes more sense to just stay home.
Research on binge eating and other eating disorders illustrate a need for cross-cultural understanding. Rachel W. Goode et al. (2020) did a systematic review of the literature related to binge eating among Black women. The authors state that Black women have similar or higher rates of binge eating than white women and that this behavior coincides with obesity at an even higher rate. Their research points out limitations in current eating disorders research, including how assessment tools may not be adequate in measuring eating disorder behaviors in Black women. For example, Goode et al. (2020) contend that cultural expectations surrounding the use of food for emotional support and eating larger portions of food may be related to lessened feelings of shame. (Research into Black women’s experiences with eating issues is lacking, but what research we do have suggests that there is less of a link between food and shame in the Black community. It’s not that Black women do not experience shame at all, but that there is less body shame or shame around using food for comfort than with white women.) However, feelings of shame are a criteria in diagnosing binge eating disorder, so this cultural difference appears to affect diagnostic results. There is also more acceptance of larger body sizes within the U.S. Black community, which could also relate to the lower likelihood of feeling shame. Results of another, broader study of eating disorders show that overall, white women and women of color with eating disorders exhibit similar levels of symptomatology, but when there were differences, it was women of color reporting more severe symptoms (Monterubio et al. 2020). Grace E. Monterubio et al. (2020) argue that more research is need on how eating disorders present in women of color and white women so that culturally competent treatment can be offered.
The medical community also disregards the importance of cultural foodways to whole body wellness. Within the Black American community especially, stereotypes about specific foods and appropriate food quantities can be harmful. Many of these ideas can be traced back to a colonial mentality that views difference as inferior. It is essential that medical schools are proactive about weeding out white supremacist concepts that lead to racial inequity in health services. Recent research highlights not only the need for further eating disorder research centered on Black, Indigenous, People of Color (BIPOC) women, but specifically on the need to interrogate measures and to examine cultural differences in beliefs around food and eating. Amy H. Egbert et al. (2022) point out that eating disorder researchers have discussed the need to study ethnic and racial differences for three decades and that there is an understanding that disordered eating is not just a white woman problem. Neha J. Goel et al. (2022) state that racial and ethnic minorities have already been shown to be underrepresented in the discipline, and an entire paradigm shift is needed despite some efforts to increase representation.
Recent scholarship provides us with the knowledge to bridge knowledge gaps, including understanding how Black women internalize obligations centered on surviving in white-dominated society and how they can be negatively impacted by stereotypes. The SWS shows that when Black people project an image of strength, it reifies the notion of the strong Black woman who needs no help. Black disabled women need to be able to externalize their valid feelings of anger and suffering, but doing so would put them at further risk of experiencing microaggressions and direct racism. Therefore, the feedback loop prompts Black women to stifle their emotions, leading to continued mental and physical illness.
Conclusions
Examining the oppression of marginalized groups has become a viable and necessary academic endeavor, as indicated by the growth of fields such as women’s studies, fat studies, disability studies, and Black studies. Academia has finally begun to look at disability history and how adding the lens of disability advances our understanding of race and gender (Baynton, 2001). Similarly, fat studies has attempted to humanize large bodied people, extracting the pathology that has been projected onto fatness. While these fields have contributed necessary knowledge, we have yet to fully integrate these findings into a productive plan to offer culturally competent and trauma-informed health care to fat, disabled, Black women. In fact, the white medical complex has largely ignored the related scholarship that Black women have worked hard to produce, such as Washington’s (2006) concept of “black iatrophobia”.
We need to investigate the ways that habits of white supremacy have burrowed into the American health care system. The disability rights movement and our cultural expectations about food and eating are two specific areas that require further study. The ways that Black Americans experience and react to being disabled are different from the experience of disabled white Americans, yet that difference is disregarded, and assumptions are made when accommodations are discussed and planned. Dieticians, nutritionists, and other providers also make harmful assumptions about fat, Black, disabled women’s dietary habits. These assumptions are based on unconscious bias, and unpacking these ideas needs to be prioritized among medical students. Changing the way that we think about topics related to race and health will go a long way to improving health care delivery for fat, Black, disabled women.
More inclusive medical research requires more diversity in researchers, as well as in research respondents. Goode et al. (2020) argue that there have been systemic issues with recruiting, engaging, and retaining Black participants in binge eating studies. Goel et al. (2022) call for accountability in recruiting and retaining scientists in the eating disorder field that belong to marginalized groups, as well as in representation of minorities in research studies. Racial and ethnic minorities are underrepresented in the discipline despite limited efforts to increase representation, and a serious shift is needed. Recommendations for facilitating this shift include providing and maintaining “safe, inclusive, and supportive spaces” to preserve long-term careers for marginalized identities in eating disorder research, creating approaches to specifically recruit researchers from diverse racial and ethnic groups, and committing to the collection of comprehensive demographic information from interviewees and respondents (Goel et al., 2022).
The work of Moya Bailey and Izetta Mobley (2019) offer further guidance on how to interrogate the disability rights movement and root out white supremacy in the U.S. medical field. They describe their “Black feminist disability framework” as a structure which “centers race, gender, and disability, challenging these generally siloed theories to work together to better understand the realities for those multiply marginalized within society” (p. 19). Bailey and Mobley (2019) write that the historical and continued physical and mental violence experienced by Black people in the United States are traumatizing, and, furthermore, that trauma is disabling. They look at ways disability studies can incorporate the Black experience and how African American studies can include disability history to provide a more complete understanding of how these realms intersect. Bailey and Mobley (2019) raise valuable questions about white masculinity in the formation of the American understanding of disability, as well. The disability rights movement was spearheaded by white disabled men such as Justin Dart Jr., Ed Roberts, and Fred Fay – men who had no lived experience of how Black people in general, and Black women specifically, have experienced disability.
In his essay “Many Thousands Gone,” James Baldwin (1998) puts himself in the place of white Americans when he writes: “Our dehumanization of the Negro then is indivisible from our dehumanization of ourselves: the loss of our own identity is the price we pay for our annulment of his” (p. 20). The simultaneous medicalization and dehumanization of fat, disabled, Black women matters not only because they have value as human beings, but also because all health is bound up with Black women’s health.<a href="#_ftn3" id="_ftnref3">[3]</a> The weight stigma that I experience as a fat white woman is bound up with the weight stigma that Black women experience. The sexism that I experience is bound up with the sexism that they experience. The ableism that I experience is bound up with the ableism that they experience. My liberation from these things is bound up with the liberation of Black women. We must work together to untangle white supremacy from U.S. medical institutions for all Americans to experience liberation.
References
Bailey, M., & Mobley, I. A. (2019). Work in The Intersections: A Black Feminist Disability Framework. Gender & Society, 33(1), 19–40.
Baldwin, J. (1998). Baldwin: Collected Essays. New York: Library of America.
Baynton, D. C. (2001). Disability and the Justification of Inequality in American History. In P. K. Longmore & L. Umansky (Eds.), The New Disability History: American Perspectives (pp. 33-56). New York: New York University Press.
Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. (n.d.). The USPHS Syphilis Study at Tuskegee. Retrieved from https://www.cdc.gov/tuskegee/index.html.
Egbert, A., Hunt, R. A., Williams, K., Burke, N. L., & Mathis, K. J. (2022). Reporting Racial and Ethnic Diversity in Eating Disorder Research over the Past 20 Years. International Journal of Eating Disorders, 55(1), 455–62.
Goel, N. J., Jennings Mathis, K., Egbert, A. H., Petterway, F., Breithaupt, L., Eddy, K. T., Franko, D. L., & Graham, A. K. (2022). Accountability in Promoting Representation of Historically Marginalized Racial and Ethnic Populations in the Eating Disorders Field: A Call to Action. International Journal of Eating Disorders, 55(4), 463–69.
Goode, R. W., Cowell, M. M., Mazzeo, S. E., Cooper-Lewter, C., Forte, A., Olayia, O., & Bulik, C. M. (2020). Binge Eating and Binge‐Eating Disorder in Black Women: A Systematic Review. International Journal of Eating Disorders, 53(4), 491–507.
Harris, C. L., Goldman, B. M., Gurkas, P., Butler, C., & Bookman, P. (2022). Superwoman’s Kryptonite: The Superwoman Schema and Perceived Barriers to Weight Management Among U.S. Black Women. Journal of Health Psychology, 27(13), 2887–2897.
Hollander, M. A. G., & Greene, M. G. (2019). A Conceptual Framework for Understanding Iatrophobia. Patient Education and Counseling, 102(11), 2091–2096.
Leath, S., Jones, M. K., & Butler-Barnes, S. (2021). An Examination of Aces, The Internalization of the Superwoman Schema, and Mental Health Outcomes Among Black Adult Women. Journal of Trauma & Dissociation, 23(3), 307–323.
Martin, C. A., & McGrath, B. P. (2014). White-coat Hypertension. Clinical & Experimental Pharmacology & Physiology, 41(1), 22–29.
Monterubio, G. E., Fitzsimmons-Craft, E. E., Balantekin, K. N., Sadeh-Sharvit, S., Goel, N. J., Laing, O., Firebaugh, M., Flatt, R. E., Cavazos-Rehg, P., Taylor, B., & Wilfley, D. E. (2020). Eating Disorder Symptomatology, Clinical Impairment, and Comorbid Psychopathology in Racially and Ethnically Diverse College Women with Eating Disorders. International Journal of Eating Disorders, 53(11), 1868–74.
Murata, T., Narita, K., Hamada, T., Takahashi, T., Omori, M., Yoshida, H., & Wada, Y. (2006). White Coat Phenomenon, Anxiety and Endothelial Function in Healthy Normotensive Elderly Subjects. Blood Pressure, 15(2), 88–92.
Okun, T. (2021, May). White Supremacy Culture – Still Here. Dismantling Racism. Retrieved from http://www.whitesupremacyculture.info/uploads/4/3/5/7/43579015/white_supremacy_culture_-_still_here.pdf.
Parkinson, Justin. (2016). The significance of Sarah Baartman. BBC News Magazine, January 7. Retrieved from https://www.bbc.com/news/magazine-35240987.
Sovereign Union. (n.d.). “Liberation” and “You Are On Aboriginal Land.” Retrieved from http://nationalunitygovernment.org/content/liberation-and-you-are-aboriginal-land.
Stenehjem, A.-E., & Os, I. (2004). Reproducibility of Blood Pressure Variability, White-Coat Effect and Dipping Pattern in Untreated, Uncomplicated and Newly Diagnosed Essential Hypertension. Blood Pressure, 13(4), 214–224.
Washington, H. A. (2006). Medical Apartheid: The Dark History of Medical Experimentation on Black Americans from Colonial Times to the Present. Albany, NY: Anchor Books.
Woods-Giscombé, C. L. (2018). Reflections on the Development of the Superwoman Schema Conceptual Framework: An Intersectional Approach Guided by African American Womanist Perspectives. Meridians, 16(2), 333–342.
© Copyright 2023 Righting Wrongs: A Journal of Human Rights. All rights reserved. 
Righting Wrongs: A Journal of Human Rights is an academic journal that provides space for undergraduate students to explore human rights issues, challenge current actions and frameworks, and engage in problem-solving aimed at tackling some of the world’s most pressing issues. This open-access journal is available online at www.webster.edu/rightingwrongs.
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<a href="#_ftnref1" id="_ftn1">[1]</a> The U.S. Public Health Service (USPHS) Syphilis Study at Tuskegee was conducted between 1932 and 1972 to research untreated syphilis. Researchers did not collect informed consent from participants and they did not offer treatment, even after it was widely available (Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, n.d.).
<a href="#_ftnref2" id="_ftn2">[2]</a> Human trafficked to Europe by a British doctor, Baartman was paraded around “freak shows” in London and Paris, with crowds invited to look at her large buttocks. Her case is seen by many as the epitome of colonial exploitation and the racist commodification of Black people (Parkinson, 2016).
<a href="#_ftnref3" id="_ftn3">[3]</a> These thoughts are inspired by the quote often attributed to Lilla Watson: “If you have come here to help me you are wasting your time, but if you have come because your liberation is bound up with mine, then let us work together.” Although she said this in a 1985 speech at the United Nations, Watson was uncomfortable with sole attribution as it came about collectively with an Aboriginal activist group (Sovereign Union, n.d.).
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<title>BOOK REVIEW SYMPOSIUM – You Are Not American</title>
<link>https://blogs.webster.edu/humanrights/2023/12/01/book-review-symposium-you-are-not-american-by-amanda-frost/</link>
<comments>https://blogs.webster.edu/humanrights/2023/12/01/book-review-symposium-you-are-not-american-by-amanda-frost/#respond</comments>
<dc:creator><![CDATA[lkingston54]]></dc:creator>
<pubDate>Fri, 01 Dec 2023 21:44:09 +0000</pubDate>
<category><![CDATA[Volume XIII, Issue 2]]></category>
<guid isPermaLink="false">https://blogs.webster.edu/humanrights/?p=1408</guid>
<description><![CDATA[Jachelle Billingsley and Alexander Magrath, Webster University – Saint Louis BOOK REVIEW SYMPOSIUM – You Are Not American, by Amanda Frost [Download PDF] Editorial note: Undergraduate seniors in Webster University’s Department of History, Politics, and International Relations read Amanda Frost’s (2021) book You Are Not American: Citizenship Stripping from Dred Scott to the Dreamers as […]]]></description>
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Jachelle Billingsley and Alexander Magrath, Webster University – Saint Louis

BOOK REVIEW SYMPOSIUM – You Are Not American, by Amanda Frost
[<a href="http://blogs.webster.edu/humanrights/files/Book-review-symposium_BillingsleyMagrath.pdf" data-type="link" data-id="http://blogs.webster.edu/humanrights/files/Book-review-symposium_BillingsleyMagrath.pdf">Download PDF</a>]
Editorial note: Undergraduate seniors in Webster University’s Department of History, Politics, and International Relations read Amanda Frost’s (2021) book You Are Not American: Citizenship Stripping from Dred Scott to the Dreamers as part of their Spring 2023 “Senior Overview” shared reading project. In this book review symposium, Jachelle Billingsley and Alexander Magrath share their reflections on You Are Not American following their close reading of the text, course discussions, and oral examinations with faculty. Author Amanda Frost is the John A. Ewald Jr. Research Professor of Law at University of Virgina’s School of Law.
Perspective: Jachelle Billingsley
What does it mean to be an American citizen? How secure are you in your citizenship, and is this a right that can be taken away from you? In Amanda Frost’s (2021) book, You are Not American: Citizenship Stripping from Dred Scott to the Dreamers, these questions are brought to life through historical case studies of real people who had their citizenship questioned. Frost (2021) argues that citizenship is an essential right and that the practice of citizenship stripping aims to take away that fundamental protection. She demonstrates how citizenship stripping has been used throughout America’s history to oppress and exclude particular individuals and groups from enjoying the full benefits of their American citizenship.
Frost (2021) lays out two main themes to show the precarity of American citizenship. First, she outlines how the U.S. government used citizenship stripping to take away legal rights and privileges from certain people. The rights taken away include the right to vote, the ability to hold political office, and the right to enter and remain in the United States. In this instance, citizenship stripping was used to strip people of rights the government could no longer justifiably take away on the sole basis of race, gender, ethnicity, marital status, or political affiliation. Frost (2021) then describes how citizenship expands beyond legal rights and privileges to also include a sense of identity and belonging. She explains that the stripping of citizenship not only deprived people of their identity as Americans but was also used as a tool to purge the country of those deemed “Un-American”. This allowed the U.S. government to qualify what it meant to be “American” and what type of people could wear that label. With her reliance on archival work and a plethora of primary sources, Frost (2021) provides us with an array of case studies that support these themes.
Though she is critical of the U.S. government and its use of citizenship stripping, I think Frost (2021) avoids the trap of writing either a primarily celebratory or pessimistic brief of American history. Instead, she opts to let her case studies illustrate the lived experiences of citizenship stripping. For example, she does not omit the historical facts that Confederate leaders Robert E. Lee and Jefferson Davis regained their U.S. citizenships after death. In this way, she denies us the opportunity to slide their damaging historical impacts under the rug or to cast them aside as former American citizens. Frost (2021) therefore does an excellent job of making readers examine hypocrisies regarding who should retain American citizenship. This forces us to face and acknowledge the history of a country that struggles with identity – including enduring racism, sexism, and xenophobia.
Although I enjoyed the book, there were some ways in which I found it lacking. For instance, it would have been interesting to see how citizenship stripping affected Muslims living in the United States, especially after 9/11 and the rise of global counter-terrorism security measures. Secondly, there are times when the book’s emphasis on storytelling left me wanting more data to support the author’s core arguments. While I understand the effort to write the book in a way that appeals to a larger audience, more data could have connected the case studies and given readers a more complete view of citizenship stripping as a larger, deliberate strategy. Overall, this book is an excellent starting point for understanding citizenship stripping and encouraging further research on this topic. Frost’s (2021) You are Not American: Citizenship Stripping from Dred Scott to the Dreamers ultimately shows us how citizenship stripping has been used for more than 150 years to oppress, silence, and intimidate people to reinforce the ideology of who counts as an “American”.
Perspective: Alexander Magrath
In her book You are Not American: Citizenship Stripping from Dred Scott to the Dreamers, Amanda Frost (2021) defines citizen stripping in the United States as an action used as a proxy for taking away the rights of citizenship because other markers (such as race and gender) are barred by protections within the U.S. Constitution. The goal of her book is to share individual stories using voices from historical case studies to show how citizenship stripping impacted peoples’ lives and access to fundamental rights. To do this, Frost (2021) centers our attention on ways the U.S. government has persecuted its own citizens through nation-building and its continuation. Frost’s (2021) emphasis on storytelling also makes this scholarly book more accessible to non-academics, which is a valuable contribution because everyone should understand the negative impacts that citizenship stripping has had on individuals and groups deemed “un-American”.
But what is a citizen? Frost (2021) believes a citizen is a national community member who possesses all the rights and privileges guaranteed by their constitution and government who is subject to the duties that community membership entails. Yet there has been a lot of tension in American history – between different ideologies, laws, and courts’ interpretations of those laws – in determining what it means to be an American citizen. Moreover, America’s dark history has much to say about what it means to NOT be American; awful things have been done to certain individuals and groups because of their customs, religion, racial/ethnic/sexual/gender identities, and even choices of reading material. These people are perceived as threats to the status quo, majority societal opinion, and the government – giving them a status deemed unworthy of being American. Determining who does and does not belong is part of nation-building; in many ways, determining who we are not is just as important as deciding who we are.
Frost’s (2021) method of supporting her arguments is to tell personal stories of “unwanted” people who experienced citizen stripping. She chose these individuals because most of their stories are not widely known by most Americans. From the Dred Scott decision (where the U.S. Supreme Court ruled that Black Americans could not claim U.S. citizenship) to the internment of Japanese Americans during WWII (illustrated by the case of Joseph Kurihara) to the mass deportation of Mexican Americans in the 1950s, Frost (2021) provides stories of how American citizens were stripped of their nationality or deemed unworthy of citizenship. One example is the story of Emma Goldman, an anarchist who was stripped of her citizenship because of her critical views of the U.S. government during World War I. After her work inspired someone to assassinate U.S. President William McKinley, she was stripped of citizenship via the Espionage Act, imprisoned, and then deported to the Soviet Union. The personal stories Frost (2021) shares seem to have little in common except for the fact that the U.S. government wants to silence and persecute individuals who have been deemed “un-American.” In this way, citizenship stripping serves as a strategy used to deny “unwanted” people their enjoyment of these rights; it is a way to say, “You do not belong here.”
Frost’s (2021) book shows how this strategy was applied to Chinese Americans with the story of Wong Kim Ark (who had to fight for his birthright citizenship because of his race); to Japanese Americans like Kurihara; to military leaders who fought against the United States during the Civil War (including Robert E. Lee and Jefferson Davis); to suffragists who fought for women’s rights (such as Ethel Coope Mackenzie); to enslaved Black Americans; and to “suspect citizens” (such as Goldman, labor leader Harry Bridges, and others); and enemy citizens (including Fritz Kuhn, an American Nazi). Through these case studies, Frost (2021) brings us all the way to present debates about U.S. citizenship and belonging related to U.S. President Barack Obama and Vice President Kamala Harris and to current discussions surrounding the so-called “birther movement.” These studies all show that because U.S. citizens are entitled to many rights and privileges,<a href="#_ftn1" id="_ftnref1">[1]</a> the government has an interest in denying citizenship to people they deem threatening or unfit.
In short, You are Not American: Citizenship Stripping from Dred Scott to the Dreamers is a reminder that the question of “Who is an American citizen?” remains a contentious one and that citizenship stripping is used as a tool for excluding certain individuals and groups from the U.S. polity.         
References
Frost, A. (2021). You Are Not American: Citizenship Stripping from Dred Scott to the Dreamers. Boston: Beacon Press.
© Copyright 2023 Righting Wrongs: A Journal of Human Rights. All rights reserved. 
Righting Wrongs: A Journal of Human Rights is an academic journal that provides space for undergraduate students to explore human rights issues, challenge current actions and frameworks, and engage in problem-solving aimed at tackling some of the world’s most pressing issues. This open-access journal is available online at www.webster.edu/rightingwrongs.
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<a href="#_ftnref1" id="_ftn1">[1]</a> The rights of U.S. citizens include the right to vote, eligibility for holding elected office (although only “natural born” citizens can be president), the right to serve on a jury, eligibility for employment in federal and state governments, and the right to enter and remain in the U.S.
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<title>The United Nations’ Failure to Stop Genocide</title>
<link>https://blogs.webster.edu/humanrights/2023/12/01/the-united-nations-failure-to-stop-genocide/</link>
<comments>https://blogs.webster.edu/humanrights/2023/12/01/the-united-nations-failure-to-stop-genocide/#respond</comments>
<dc:creator><![CDATA[lkingston54]]></dc:creator>
<pubDate>Fri, 01 Dec 2023 21:40:00 +0000</pubDate>
<category><![CDATA[Volume XIII, Issue 2]]></category>
<guid isPermaLink="false">https://blogs.webster.edu/humanrights/?p=1407</guid>
<description><![CDATA[Melani Elizabeth Corral Canales, University of Mary Washington – Fredericksburg, VA The United Nations’ Failure to Stop Genocide [Download PDF] This paper examines the response of the United Nations (UN) to human rights violations and mass atrocity crimes in Rwanda, Kosovo, and China. It argues that the UN must choose between prioritizing humanitarian intervention and […]]]></description>
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Melani Elizabeth Corral Canales, University of Mary Washington – Fredericksburg, VA

The United Nations’ Failure to Stop Genocide
[<a href="http://blogs.webster.edu/humanrights/files/Corral_The-United-Nations-Failure-to-Stop-Genocide.pdf" data-type="link" data-id="http://blogs.webster.edu/humanrights/files/Corral_The-United-Nations-Failure-to-Stop-Genocide.pdf">Download PDF</a>]

This paper examines the response of the United Nations (UN) to human rights violations and mass atrocity crimes in Rwanda, Kosovo, and China. It argues that the UN must choose between prioritizing humanitarian intervention and respecting national sovereignty, which fosters hesitation and insufficient action in the face of genocide. This is illustrated with historical cases from Rwanda and Kosovo, as well as in the ongoing genocide against Uyghurs in China. Ultimately, this paper aims to highlight the challenges and limitations that the UN encounters when responding to human rights crises.
Following World War II, the United Nations adopted the Universal Declaration of Human Rights (UDHR) and the Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide (Genocide Convention) with the objective of preventing future atrocities like the Holocaust. Despite these important legal frameworks, political challenges make it difficult for the UN to take action to prevent or stop human rights violations – including mass atrocity crimes such as genocide. Some critics claim that the UN, particularly its Security Council (which is charged with ensuring international peace and security), has failed to uphold its duty to protect human rights because it is more concerned with respecting state sovereignty. Deference to national sovereignty makes the UN reluctant to intervene when governments are committing genocide.
Case studies from past and present illustrate this tension between rights protection and respect for state sovereignty. During the 1990s in Rwanda and Kosovo, the UN was forced to decide whether humanitarian intervention or upholding sovereignty was the priority. Research on the UN’s involvement in Rwanda finds that the UN ignored evidence about the 1994 genocide, refused to intervene, and ultimately abandoned victims. Similarly, in the case of Kosovo, the UN Security Council decided not to intervene in the face of mass atrocities out of concern that doing so would breach national sovereignty. More recently, the UN has been criticized for taking too long to respond to China’s treatment of Uyghurs, a Muslim minority group facing severe persecution and possible genocide. These three cases highlight a pattern in how the UN responds to genocide, offering an idea of how the UN could respond to the unfolding Uyghur crisis in China today.
Rwanda
I chose to examine Rwanda because it is a case of a UN member state directly facilitating genocide. Indeed, many human rights organizations had published warnings about the potential for impending genocide in Rwanda; the international community was fully aware of this threat yet did not intervene until July 1994 with an extremely limited response. When Tutsi-led rebel forces successfully overtook the genocidaires and were able to stop the genocide, the UN finally sent a force of 5,500 peacekeepers (Howland, 1999). Researchers concluded that the “one overriding failure which explains why the UN could not stop or prevent the genocide, was the lack of resources and a lack of will – a lack of will to take on the commitment necessary to prevent the genocide” (Winfield, 1999, para 4). Ultimately this case shows the international community’s prioritization of state interests over human rights norms.
The genocide was precipitated by the Rwandan civil war (1990 to 1994) and the assassination of Rwanda’s president. The war was fought between the Rwandan Armed Forces, representing the country’s government, and the rebel Rwandan Patriotic Front. Both parties agreed to end the civil war in 1993 by signing the UN-sponsored Arusha Accords, but the document failed to address the underlying causes of the violence and did little to pressure the Rwandan government into compliance (Howland, 1999). Meanwhile, the UN established the United Nations Mission for Rwanda (UNAMIR) to observe a ceasefire (Howland, 1999). However, Rwandan President Juvénal Habyarimana was assassinated when his plane was shot down on 6 April 1994 – an act that was blamed on rebels, though the culprits remain officially unknown. The killing was used as a pretext to launch a genocide against Rwanda’s Tutsi ethnic minority. (The largest ethnic groups in Rwanda are the Hutus, which make up about 85 percent of Rwanda’s population, and the Tutsis, which are 14 percent.) An interim government was formed under Colonel Theoneste Bagosora, who coordinated the killing of Tutsi civilians with imported machetes and guns. The military under Bagosora’s command assassinated all political opponents of the Hutu extremists, including the prime minister and moderate government officials, before the genocide began (Britannica, 2023b).
The 1994 Rwandan genocide was marked by dehumanization, with Tutsis posited as enemies who would kill their Hutu enemies if not stopped first. For example, newspapers and radio stations called the Tutsi “cockroaches” who should be killed without mercy (White, 2009). Death squads were formed to exact group punishment on entire villages, calling Tutsis “immigrants or Ethiopians who were enslavers of Hutus, stealers of land, and killers with no need for justification of their action for murdering Hutus” (White, 2009, p. 476). To stress the need for urgent action, the military employed a “first strike policy” – those with the shared goal of eliminating Tutsis had to attack together quickly and without mercy before the Tutsis could organize themselves and stop the massacres (White, 2009). More than 800,000 Tutsis died in a period of about 100 days, with the killers coming from within the Rwandan military as well as civilian society. Tutsis in hiding were mercilessly hunted and killed, with pervasive torture and sexual violence aimed at all members of Tutsi society – including children. “The death rate in Rwanda accumulated at nearly three times the rate of the Jewish dead during the Holocaust. It was the most efficient killing since the atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki” (SURF Survivors Fund, n.d.).
The international community’s response to the 1994 Rwandan genocide was largely driven by self-interest. The day after the Rwandan president was assassinated, for instance, the U.S. ordered all American citizens to be evacuated from Rwanda. (Notably, the United States is a permanent member of the UN Security Council.) The U.S. diplomat, Prudence Bushnell, argued that “when we evacuate, we leave our poor national colleagues behind. It is not something I apologize for…you try your best to take care of them in terms of maintaining some kind of contact, in terms of keeping salary and benefits up. But when a situation becomes dangerous, we look after our own (quoted in Grünfeld & Huijboom, 2007, p. 172). Obstacles the UN encountered that “prevented” them from acting were caused by receiving “bad information, self-interest of powerful countries, and media spin all contributed to the confusion” (Howland, 1999, p. 13). Romeo Dallaire, the commander of the UNAMIR peacekeeping force, reported political killings to the UN, but they were labeled as politicide rather than genocide.
The UN prohibited UNAMIR from using force, even to protect government ministers (Grünfeld & Huijboom, 2007). Ten Belgian peacekeepers were killed in hopes that killing foreigners would prompt the UN to withdraw peacekeepers; the assumption was that the lives of Tutsi civilians would be less important than the peacekeepers. Their assumption was proven correct when the international community refused to intervene (Grünfeld & Huijboom, 2007). “During the period of evacuation, there were in total 1,700 well equipped and trained troops available in the region,” write Fred Grünfeld and Anke Huijboom (2007). “If these troops were added to the 2,500 UNAMIR soldiers there would have been more survivors” (p. 177). The UN’s unwillingness to intervene in Rwanda contributed to the genocide’s devastation, signaling a failure by the broader international community to prioritize human rights over respecting state sovereignty.
Kosovo
Conflict in Kosovo continued a troubling 1990s trend of state-sponsored genocide and other mass atrocity crimes and highlights again the UN’s hesitancy to breach state sovereignty – even to stop ethnic cleansing. Political tensions arose, in part, because Serbs felt threatened as the population of Albanians grew in the country. The fundamental disagreement stemmed from the desire of the Serbs to abolish Kosovo autonomy on one hand, and Albanians’ desire for Kosovo to be an independent state on the other. Yugoslavian President Slobodan Milosevic seized political control in 1998 and forcibly ended Kosovo’s autonomy. The Kosovo Liberation Army (KLA) was formed by ethnic Albanians in response and aimed to secede. The result was Serbian forces ethnically cleansing Kosovo Albanians to maintain political power in Kosovo (Bieber & Daskalovski, 2003; see also Britannica, 2023a).
Limited international responses in the early stages of the conflict served to exacerbate human rights violations against civilians. The United States, for instance, had expressed concern regarding civilians caught in the crossfire between Serbian forces such as the FRY (a combination of Serb police and militias) and the KLA. In response, the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) launched airstrikes against Serbian forces on March 24, 1999, because they “were moving from village to village, shelling civilians, and torching their houses” (Bieber & Daskalovski, 2003, p. 62). The objective was to deter Serbian forces from attacking Kosovo Albanians in the future, but instead it provoked a wider Serbian offensive against ethnic Albanians (Bieber & Daskalovski, 2003). This led to massive systemic ethnic cleansing and forced expulsions of Albanians. Serb forces then systematically burned and looted villages, homes, and religious sites of Kosovar Albanians, and girls and women were brutally raped while being held captive by soldiers. Kosovo Albanians were also stripped of all forms of identification so that should they decide to return to Kosovo, they would have no means to prove their nationality (Bieber & Daskalovski, 2003).
Mass atrocities in Kosovo highlighted the UN’s hesitancy to breach state sovereignty to uphold human rights norms. The UN Security Council passed Resolution 1160 on March 31, 1999, condemning the excessive force used by Serbian police against ethnic Albanian civilians and acts of terrorism by the KLA. It also imposed an arms embargo on Yugoslavia (Walling, 2014). Although there was no dissent to the resolution, there was still heavy disagreement over whether to intervene militarily. States who supported intervention claimed that by killing and forcibly expelling ethnic Albanians, Serbia had violated its obligations as a sovereign state (Walling, 2014). Those opposed to humanitarian intervention contended that Serbia had the sovereign right to minimize threats to its authority (Walling, 2014). The Security Council was unable to act since there was no agreement on whether to launch a humanitarian intervention. When the UN finally established the United Nations Mission in Kosovo (United Nations Interim Administration Mission in Kosovo, or UNMIK) in 1999, the fighting between Serbian security forces and Albanian rebel groups had ended; UNMIK was mandated to help the government with capacity-building, rather than stopping human rights abuses. In Kosovo, the question of whether state sovereignty could become invalidated in the face of mass atrocities was never addressed (Roseberry, 2013).
China
China’s treatment of Uyghurs, a predominantly Muslim ethnic minority group, highlights how the UN continues to turn a blind eye to genocide – especially when perpetrated by a powerful member state. The Chinese government has long discriminated against the Uyghurs, preventing their home region of Xinjiang from becoming independent because of its natural resources and crucial role in the Silk Road economic belt. Uyghur political protests in the 1990s resulted in violent clashes with Chinese police forces and massive security crackdowns to silence dissidents. Today, the region is heavily policed with security checkpoints, license plate scanning, and facial recognition technology to surveil the Uyghur population (BBC News, 2022). A growing number of scholars and advocates argue that anti-Uyghur discrimination has reached the level of genocide. The United States Holocaust Memorial Museum (n.d.), for instance, warns that this high-risk situation includes identity-based persecution, mass detention, surveillance, enforced sterilizations, forced labor, and forced assimilation.
In 2017, the international community learned that “re-education” camps had been built in Xinjiang to imprison thousands of Uyghurs without trial. First-hand accounts from inside the camps detail mass rape, sexual abuse, forced sterilization, and torture as part of the organized camp system (Emtseva, 2021). More than million Uyghurs have been arbitrarily detained and taken to camps for lawful conduct such as praying, having family overseas, and using social media (see Amnesty International, 2021). While the Chinese government claims that these camps are meant to counter terrorism, a recent UN report outlines proof of possible crimes against humanity such as torture, inhumane treatment, poor living conditions, forced medical treatments, and sexual and gender-based violence. The UN recommended releasing arbitrarily detained civilians and contacting their families, emphasizing that these “re-education” camps are deeply problematic but do not resemble the concentration camps used during the Holocaust of World War II (United Nations Human Rights, 2022).
After the publication of the UN report, the United States and nine other UN member states called for debate at the UN Human Rights Council. However, the debate was never held because the majority of UN members opposed it, and several others chose to abstain from voting on a resolution that would make the debate possible (Cumming-Bruce, 2022). The China Director of Human Rights Watch, Sophie Richardson, stated that the vote was “an abdication of responsibility and a betrayal of Uyghur victims” (quoted in Cumming-Bruce, 2022, para 12). Several other human rights organizations firmly agreed with this assertion, particularly advocacy groups of Uyghurs living abroad who saw the vote as another example of the UN failing to stand up against human rights abuses. China, meanwhile, has criticized negative reactions to their policies as “Western political manipulation of United Nations human rights bodies to smear China’s reputation and interfere in its internal affairs” (Cumming-Bruce, 2022, para 6). These remarks likely resonated with other UN members who fear they will be the next to be targeted, including Muslim countries like Qatar, Pakistan, and Indonesia (all of which voted against the debate even though China was charged with abusing human rights of a Muslim population; Cumming-Bruce, 2022). The opposing vote from these Muslim countries demonstrates how UN members are willing to overlook human atrocities if the UN does not interfere with their sovereignty.
Conclusion
The UN demonstrated in Rwanda and Kosovo, and is now doing so in China, that it is hesitant to sanction humanitarian intervention to stop mass atrocities such as genocide. This pattern is largely due to the UN’s fear of infringing on state sovereignty. In earlier cases of genocide elsewhere, the UN had reluctantly authorized humanitarian intervention either because there was no legitimate government or because sovereignty had been temporarily suspended. (Notably, in 1994 there was no Security Council consensus on the acceptance of humanitarian intervention as a response to human rights violations; Walling, 2015.) In Rwanda, individual member states such as the United States and the UN itself prioritized their own soldiers/peacekeepers over civilian lives. Tutsi forces, not an international intervention, was what finally ended the 1994 genocide. In Kosovo, the NATO alliance that attacked Serbian forces with the intention to stop the human rights abuses against Albanians made matters worse and spurred ethnic cleansing. The UN disapproved of NATO’s action but delayed its own intervention until after many avoidable civilian deaths.
While there seems to have been some progress on how the international community has responded to genocide since the 1990s, obstacles continue to delay responses and allow atrocities to continue. One example of this progress is the establishment of the Responsibility to Protect in 2005, an international norm which ties national sovereignty to upholding the rights of citizens and empowers UN member states to intervene to prevent or stop mass atrocities (see Global Centre for the Responsibility to Protect, n.d.). However, there are still barriers that impede action and let crimes go unpunished, the most important among them being the fear of violating state sovereignty. Despite growing proof of atrocities committed by the Chinese government, UN member states have failed to vote for a resolution that would allow the UN Human Rights Council to debate and potentially acknowledge that wrongs are occurring. According to Daniel R. Russel, who was the Assistant Secretary of State for East Asian and Pacific Affairs for the Obama Administration, “many governments are looking the other way and self-censoring on the issue of Xinjiang [because] few countries are willing to put the economic benefits of good relations with China at risk — let alone find themselves on the receiving end of Chinese retaliation” (quoted in Kulenova, 2019, para 12). China’s permanent seat on the UN Security Council means it has veto power over any UN intervention to prevent genocide; their holding this position while oppressing Uyghurs in “re-education” camps weakens the authority and legitimacy of the Council. China will likely continue to ignore the recommendations outlined in the recent UN report, and its position on the Security Council – combined with many UN members having economic ties with the China – makes UN intervention an impossibility, perpetuating the ongoing humanitarian crisis.
To conclude, the United Nations is an international organization built on the sometimes-conflicting norms of state sovereignty and universal human rights. When faced with mass atrocities such as genocide and ethnic cleansing, I believe the UN must prioritize human rights over protecting the sovereignty of perpetrator governments. The international community has a responsibility to learn of and speak the truth, to make every possible effort to prevent or stop atrocities, and to hold states accountable for their breach of international human rights law. The victims of human rights abuses are often unable to speak for themselves, and the UN cannot maintain its legitimacy while protecting governments that commit genocide by using the right of state sovereignty as justification for its inaction.
References
Amnesty International. (2021). “Like We Were Enemies in a War”: China’s Mass Internment, Torture and Persecution of Muslims in Xinjiang. Retrieved from https://xinjiang.amnesty.org/wp-content/uploads/2021/06/ASA_17_4137-2021_Full_report_ENG.pdf.
BBC News. (2022, May 24). Who Are the Uyghurs and Why Is China Being Accused of Genocide? Retrieved from https://www.bbc.com/news/world-asia-china-22278037.
Britannica. (2023a, October 6). Kosovo conflict. Retrieved from https://www.britannica.com/event/Kosovo-conflict.
Britannica. (2023b, October 9). Rwanda genocide of 1994. Retrieved from https://www.britannica.com/event/Rwanda-genocide-of-1994.
Bieber, F., & Daskalovski, Z. (2003). Understanding the War in Kosovo. London and Portland, OR: Frank Cass.<a href="https://doi.org/10.4324/9780203500736"></a>
Cumming-Bruce, N. (2022, October 6). China Turns Back Move for U.N. Debate on Abuse of Uyghurs. The New York Times.<a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2022/10/06/world/asia/china-un-xinjiang-uyghurs.html"> </a>Retrieved from https://www.nytimes.com/2022/10/06/world/asia/china-un-xinjiang-uyghurs.html.
Emtseva, J. (2021, April 25). Sanctioning the Treatment of Uighurs in China. Verfassungsblog. Retrieved from https://verfassungsblog.de/sanctioning-the-treatment-of-uighurs-in-china/.
Global Centre for the Responsibility to Protect. (n.d.). What is R2P? Retrieved from https://www.globalr2p.org/what-is-r2p/.
Grünfeld, F., & Huijboom, A. (2007). The Failure to Prevent Genocide in Rwanda: The Role of Bystanders. Leiden: Martinus Nijhoff.
Howland, C. E. (1999). Mirage, Magic, or Mixed Bag? The United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights’ Field Operation in Rwanda. Human Rights Quarterly, 21(1), 1-55.<a href="https://doi.org/10.1353/hrq.1999.0007"></a>
Kulenova, A. (2019, October 28). Why Isn’t the International Community Doing More About China’s Internment of Muslims? The McGill International Review.<a href="https://www.mironline.ca/why-isnt-the-international-community-doing-more-about-chinas-internment-of-muslims/"> </a>Retrieved from https://www.mironline.ca/why-isnt-the-international-community-doing-more-about-chinas-internment-of-muslims/.
Roseberry, W. (2013). Mass Violence and the Recognition of Kosovo: Suffering and Recognition. Europe-Asia Studies, 65(5), 857-873.<a href="https://doi.org/10.1080/09668136.2013.792449"> </a><a href="https://doi.org/10.1080/09668136.2013.792449"></a>
SURF Survivors Fund. (n.d.). Statistics. Retrieved from https://survivors-fund.org.uk/learn/statistics/.
United Nations Human Rights. (2022, August 31). OHCHR Assessment of human rights concerns in the Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region, People’s Republic of China. Retrieved from https://www.ohchr.org/sites/default/files/documents/countries/2022-08-31/22-08-31-final-assesment.pdf.
United States Holocaust Memorial Museum. (n.d.). Chinese Persecution of the Uyghurs. Retrieved from https://www.ushmm.org/genocide-prevention/countries/china/chinese-persecution-of-the-uyghurs.
Walling, C. B. (2015). Human Rights Norms, State Sovereignty, and Humanitarian Intervention. Human Rights Quarterly, 37(2), 383-413.<a href="https://doi.org/10.1353/hrq.2015.0034"> </a><a href="https://doi.org/10.1353/hrq.2015.0034"></a>
White, K. R. (2009). Scourge of Racism: Genocide in Rwanda. Journal of Black Studies, 39(3), 471-481.
Winfield, N. (1999, December 16). UN Failed Rwanda. Global Policy Forum. Retrieved from https://archive.globalpolicy.org/component/content/article/201-rwanda/39240.html.
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<title>Under Attack: Safeguarding LGBTQIA+ Rights Worldwide</title>
<link>https://blogs.webster.edu/humanrights/2023/12/01/under-attack-safeguarding-lgbtqia-rights-worldwide/</link>
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<pubDate>Fri, 01 Dec 2023 21:32:05 +0000</pubDate>
<category><![CDATA[Volume XIII, Issue 2]]></category>
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<description><![CDATA[Morgan Antisdel, Webster University – Saint Louis Under Attack: Safeguarding LGBTQIA+ Rights Worldwide [Download PDF] The rights of queer individuals are under attack worldwide. Despite the global prevalence of anti- LGBTQIA+ discrimination and human rights abuses, international human rights law has focused little attention toward explicitly protecting people based on their sexual orientation and/or gender […]]]></description>
<content:encoded><![CDATA[
Morgan Antisdel, Webster University – Saint Louis 

Under Attack: Safeguarding LGBTQIA+ Rights Worldwide

[<a href="http://blogs.webster.edu/humanrights/files/Antisdel_Global-Anti-Queer.pdf" data-type="link" data-id="http://blogs.webster.edu/humanrights/files/Antisdel_Global-Anti-Queer.pdf">Download PDF</a>] 

The rights of queer individuals are under attack worldwide. Despite the global prevalence of anti- LGBTQIA+ discrimination and human rights abuses, international human rights law has focused little attention toward explicitly protecting people based on their sexual orientation and/or gender identity. This article highlights the widespread anti-LGBTQIA+ discrimination that necessitates specific human rights protections. First, it explores the application of existing international human rights law and norms and how they are being applied to protect LGBTQIA+ individuals. Second, it highlights how LGBTQIA+ people face human rights abuses around the world by using global case studies from the United States, Brazil, and Uganda. Lastly, the author reflects on the role of international law and norms in protecting queer rights and stresses the need for further engagement with the LGBTQIA+ community to safeguard their fundamental rights.

The rights of queer individuals are under attack worldwide. Amnesty International (2001; see also n.d.) contends that LGBTQIA+<a id="_ftnref1" href="#_ftn1">[1]</a> people are frequently dehumanized and targeted for torture and discrimination. This includes instances of state discrimination and persecution, such as anti-trans policies in public schools and the criminalization of gay sex (see also UN Human Rights n.d.). But it also includes instances of private citizens discriminating against LGBTQIA+ people – and in many of those cases, Amnesty International (2001) argues that the state is accountable for allowing and sometimes aiding in such discrimination. The state has, in a sense, “failed to fulfill its obligation to provide effective protection” (Amnesty International, 2001, p. 7). This might include refusing people medical care and other services or engaging in violence or harassment against them because of their LGBTQIA+ identities.
Despite the prevalence of anti- LGBTQIA+ discrimination and human rights abuses around the world, international human rights law has paid little attention towards explicitly protecting people because of their sexual orientation and/or gender identity. However, there appears to be a consensus within the international human rights community that the rights of queer individuals are covered by existing human rights frameworks and laws and that there is not a need for a separate, internationally binding legal text to explicitly protect queer rights. International human rights scholar and legal positivist Jack Donnelly (2001), for instance, believes human rights are not valid until they are codified by international law and that using morality and the idea that there is a natural way of being to justify our rights is problematic. This is because they have been used to condone classist, racist, and misogynist doling of rights. He claims that the best avenue for protecting the rights of queer individuals is through interpreting our current international human rights law as including sexual orientation and gender identity on the grounds of discrimination and torture (Donnelly, 2001, p. 563-564). Similarly, Amnesty International does not find it necessary for the international community to create a separate covenant or convention on the rights of queer individuals. They claim this is because sexual orientation and gender identity are integral parts of being a human, and the Universal Declaration of Human Rights (UDHR) asserts that human rights are based on maintaining a respect for the dignity and worth of humans (Amnesty International, 2001, p. 8). Therefore, any threat to an individual’s rights based on sexual orientation or gender identity is a violation of their human rights.
This article highlights the widespread anti-LGBTQIA+ discrimination worldwide that necessitates specific human rights protections for LGBTQIA+ people. First, I explore the application of existing international human rights law and norms and how they are being applied to protect LGBTQIA+ individuals. This includes a discussion of the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights (ICCPR), the Convention Against Torture and Other Cruel, Inhuman, or Degrading Treatment or Punishment (UN Torture Convention), the International Covenant on Economic, Social, and Cultural Rights (ICESCR), the Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination against Women (CEDAW), the Convention on the Rights of the Child, and the non-legally binding Yogyakarta Principles. Second, I highlight how LGBTQIA+ people face human rights abuses around the world by using global case studies from the United States, Brazil, and Uganda. These cases illustrate how fundamental human rights are violated due to individuals’ sexual orientation and/or gender identity despite international legal guarantees of rights to all people by virtue of being human. Lastly, I offer my reflections on the role of international law and norms in protecting queer rights and stress the need for further engagement with the LGBTQIA+ community to safeguard their fundamental rights. While international human rights apply to all human beings, regardless of sexual orientation or gender identity, the reality is that LGBTQIA+ people face unique vulnerabilities. Their needs should be a priority to the international human rights community.

Application of International Human Rights Law and Legal Norms
Existing protections for queer individuals center on international human rights laws and legal norms that do not explicitly outline LGBTQIA+ rights. This includes legally binding international law – frequently termed “conventions” and “covenants” within the United Nations system – and non-binding human rights frameworks that represent widely-accepted legal norms, such as the Universal Declaration of Human Rights (UDHR) and other international declarations and principles. Interpreting international law and norms to include protections for queer folks has been effective in multiple international court cases (Simm, 2020), and using these legal foundations to protect LGBTQIA+ people is necessary without an international convention specifically dedicated to queer rights.<a> </a>This section highlights the most important international laws and legal norms for upholding the rights of LGBTQIA+ individuals.
The International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights (ICCPR) was adopted by the UN General Assembly in December 1966. The ICCPR has several articles that can be applied to queer protections, and these are vitally important because most states are party to this convention. That is, states violating the Convention can be held legally accountable. Article 19.2 of the ICCPR states: “Everyone shall have the right to freedom of expression; this right shall include freedom to seek, receive and impart information and ideas of all kinds, regardless of frontiers, either orally, in writing or in print, in the form of art, or through any other media of his choice” (United Nations, 1966a). This Article can be interpreted to mean that queer culture and acts are protected under the freedom of expression. The right to assembly, including queer gatherings, is protected under Article 21, which declares: “The right of peaceful assembly shall be recognized. No restrictions may be placed on the exercise of this right other than those imposed in conformity with the law and which are necessary in a democratic society in the interests of national security or public safety, public order, the protection of public health or morals or the protection of the rights and freedoms of others” (United Nations, 1966a). Article 22 of the ICCPR is also very valuable because it protects the right to freedom of association, which could be equated to protections for queer community spaces and mutual aid groups. Article 22 stipulates:
1. Everyone shall have the right to freedom of association with others, including the right to form and join trade unions for the protection of his interests.
2. No restrictions may be placed on the exercise of this right other than those which are prescribed by law and which are necessary in a democratic society in the interests of national security or public safety, public order, the protection of public health or morals or the protection of the rights and freedoms of others. This article shall not prevent the imposition of lawful restrictions on members of the armed forces and of the police in their exercise of this right (United Nations, 1966a).
The International Covenant on Economic, Social, and Cultural Rights (ICESCR) was also adopted by the UN General Assembly in December 1966, and most states have ratified it and are therefore party to this international law. Its Article 2.2 asserts: “The States Parties to the present Covenant undertake to guarantee that the rights enunciated in the present Covenant will be exercised without discrimination of any kind as to race, colour, sex, language, religion, political or other opinion, national or social origin, property, birth or other status” (United Nations, 1966b). “Sex” and “other status” are key words here, since these lines protect queer individuals from discrimination under international law.
The Convention Against Torture and Other Cruel, Inhuman, or Degrading Treatment or Punishment was adopted by the UN General Assembly in December of 1984. The UN Torture Convention includes an important component for queer protections by legally banning torture based on discrimination “of any kind,” which can be interpreted to include torture on the grounds of gender and sexuality expression. Article 1.1 states:
For the purposes of this Convention, the term “torture” means any act by which severe pain or suffering, whether physical or mental, is intentionally inflicted on a person for such purposes as obtaining from him or a third person information or a confession, punishing him for an act he or a third person has committed or is suspected of having committed, or intimidating or coercing him or a third person, or for any reason based on discrimination of any kind, when such pain or suffering is inflicted by or at the instigation of or with the consent or acquiescence of a public official or other person acting in an official capacity. It does not include pain or suffering arising only from, inherent in or incidental to lawful sanctions (UN General Assembly, 1984).
The Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination against Women (CEDAW) was adopted by the UN General Assembly in December 1979. While the Convention pertains to women broadly, protections specific to queer women can also be interpreted from it. And, notably, the influence of patriarchy<a href="#_ftn2" id="_ftnref2">[2]</a> affects all people, especially queer individuals, as misogyny and homophobia are closely tied with the overarching idea of CIS-gender, heterosexual male supremacy. Article 5(a) states that States Parties shall take all appropriate measures “to modify the social and cultural patterns of conduct of men and women, with a view to achieving the elimination of prejudices and customary and all other practices which are based on the idea of the inferiority or the superiority of either of the sexes or on stereotyped roles for men and women” (United Nations, 1988). Article 10(c) furthers this idea but includes education. (This article could be applied to protections for teaching comprehensive sexuality education (CSE), for instance. CSE is based in a non-heteronormativity, which also breaks down gender roles and stereotypes.) Article 10(c) states:
States Parties shall take all appropriate measures to eliminate discrimination against women in order to ensure to them equal rights with men in the field of education and in particular to ensure, on a basis of equality of men and women:
The elimination of any stereotyped concept of the roles of men and women at all levels and in all forms of education by encouraging coeducation and other types of education which will help to achieve this aim and, in particular, by the revision of textbooks and school programmes and the adaptation of teaching methods (United Nations, 1988).
Following the practice of non-discrimination, CEDAW’s Article 12.1 focuses on preventing discrimination in health care. It contends: “States Parties shall take all appropriate measures to eliminate discrimination against women in the field of health care in order to ensure, on a basis of equality of men and women, access to health care services, including those related to family planning” (United Nations, 1988). This article can be applied to protections for gender affirming care in countries such as the United States. While the focus would be on transgender women and gender non-conforming people assigned female at birth (AFAB), the protected right to healthcare is vital within all LGBTQIA+ communities.
The Convention on the Rights of the Child was adopted by the UN General Assembly in November 1989 and can be applied to protections for queer children. Most states have ratified this convention, as well. Two articles from the Convention can be applied to queer protections. Article 19.1 can also be applied to education, protecting CSE to deter homophobia and transphobia while also providing education on queer rights. It states:
States Parties shall take all appropriate legislative, administrative, social and educational measures to protect the child from all forms of physical or mental violence, injury or abuse, neglect or negligent treatment, maltreatment or exploitation, including sexual abuse, while in the care of parent(s), legal guardian(s) or any other person who has the care of the child (United Nations, 1989).
Further, Article 29.1 of the Convention on the Rights of the Child protects queer minors by stressing their rights to self-determination, development, and freedom. Note that we can interpret “different civilizations from his or her own” to include queer cultures, even if those cultures are different from the culture in which the child was raised. Article 29.1 stipulates:
States Parties agree that the education of the child shall be directed to:
(c) The development of respect for the child’s parents, his or her own cultural identity, language and values, for the national values of the country in which the child is living, the country from which he or she may originate, and for civilizations different from his or her own;
(d) The preparation of the child for responsible life in a free society, in the spirit of understanding, peace, tolerance, equality of sexes, and friendship among all peoples, ethnic, national and religious groups and persons of indigenous origin (United Nations, 1989).
As noted, non-binding frameworks such as the UDHR offer human rights frameworks that often lead to binding international (and domestic) laws. In the case of queer rights, another source of legal norms is the Yogyakarta Principles. In November 2006, the International Service for Human Rights and the International Commission of Jurists assembled a team to create a collection of principles, drawing from international law, on the violations of human rights based on sexual orientation and gender identity. The group was made up of human rights experts, theorists, and activists from 25 countries. They gathered for three days in Yogyakarta, Indonesia, at Gadjah Mada University (International Commission of Jurists, 2007). The resulting principles have been endorsed by non-state human rights groups and experts but are not legally binding, similar to the UDHR (Simm, 2020).
The Yogyakarta Principles outline the rights of queer individuals and the obligations states bear to protect queer individuals’ human rights. The document also lists recommendations attached to each principle to guide implementation within states, non-governmental organizations, and the UN human rights system (International Commission of Jurists, 2007). These recommendations are important because they force states to take accountability for the areas where protections for the rights of queer people have been substandard. Each principle preludes a detailed recommendation section that lists multiple ways states can carry out these protections. The Yogyakarta Principles are much like the UDHR as they both outline the fundamental rights of persons and both are living documents (International Commission of Jurists, 2007). For example, Principle Ten (the Right to Freedom from Torture and Cruel, Inhuman, or Degrading Treatment or Punishment) stipulates: “Everyone has the right to be free from torture and from cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment or punishment, including for reasons relating to sexual orientation or gender identity.”  Beneath the definition of the right, the following recommendations are listed. They note that states shall:
Take all necessary legislative, administrative and other measures to prevent and provide protection from torture and cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment or punishment, perpetrated for reasons relating to the sexual orientation or gender identity of the victim, as well as the incitement of such acts;
Take all reasonable steps to identify victims of torture and cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment or punishment, perpetrated for reasons relating to sexual orientation or gender identity, and offer appropriate remedies including redress and reparation and, where appropriate, medical and psychological support;
Undertake programmes of training and awareness-raising for police, prison personnel and all other officials in the public and private sector who are in a position to perpetrate or to prevent such acts (International Commission of Jurists, 2007, p. 17).
Human rights scholars like Jack Donnelly (2001) theorized for decades before the drafting of the Yogyakarta Principles that there would never be an international declaration specifically on the rights of queer individuals because such an immense score of states and cultures viewed homosexuality as “perverted” and wrong (p. 563). And while the Yogyakarta Principles are recognized by multiple UN bodies today, at the time they were drafted in 2006, many states and individuals were deeply troubled by the mere idea of human rights experts gathering to discuss such topics as queer rights. At the time of the conference, 200 armed participants attacked the meeting venue, as well as queer bars and dance clubs. Ten people were severely injured. Despite the large number of criminal perpetrators in this case, only 57 accused individuals were questioned by the police. All suspects were released, and no one was charged (Amnesty International, 2001). These attacks only served to highlight the necessity of defending human rights on the basis of sexual orientation and gender identity. The global case studies discussed in the following section further illustrate the need for such protections.

Human Rights Abuses: Global Case Studies
United States
The United States has a mixed record with ratifying international human rights laws. Indeed, the U.S. is often posited as a global human rights leader – but many are surprised that it has not ratified some key international laws. The U.S. is party to the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights (ICCPR) and the Convention Against Torture. The U.S. has signed, but not ratified, the International Covenant on Economic, Social, and Cultural Rights (ICESCR) and the Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination Against Women (CEDAW) (Thoreson, 2021). Furthermore, the U.S. is not party to the Convention on the Rights of the Child.
The United States has been prominent in the news recently for the widespread legislative panic regarding the rights of transgender individuals. This includes bans on transgender children participating in sports that align with their gender identities, as well as preventing trans minors from accessing gender-affirming healthcare. Trans people, especially trans people of color, remain at high risk of discrimination and violence (see Human Rights Watch, 2021). However, this anti-trans rhetoric is not a new development. It gained a footing in national debates and legal discussions, in part, through federal actions taken during the presidency of Donald J. Trump. This includes rescinding protections for transgender students under Title IX legislation.
Prior to Trump’s inauguration, the U.S. Department of Justice’s Civil Rights Division and the U.S. Department for Education’s Office for Civil Rights released a May 2016 document which listed protections for transgender students under Title IX.<a id="_ftnref3" href="#_ftn3">[3]</a> The document asserted that Title IX includes a student’s gender identity and transgender status as grounds for federal protection against discrimination in public schools. The document was never legally binding, but it served as a guide for U.S. states’ education departments and school districts. The form lists the obligations schools have to protect their transgender students in accordance with Title IX and included four obligations that schools had to protect trans students: 1. Safe and nondiscriminatory environment; 2. identification documents, names, and pronouns; 3. sex-segregated activities and facilities; and 4. privacy and education records. The third point included protections for transgender students participating in athletics (U.S. Department of Justice Civil Rights Division & U.S. Department of Education Office for Civil Rights, 2016).
Those Title IX protections were rescinded during the Trump administration, and legislation targeting trans individuals soon appeared around the country. Twenty-seven states introduced transgender athletic bans in 2022, with states such as South Dakota instituting bans on transgender children from joining and participating in sports teams (Thoreson, 2022a). During that same time, Tennessee enacted their first gender-affirming care<a href="#_ftn4" id="_ftnref4">[4]</a> ban, and others soon followed (Thoreson, 2022b). The Tennessee law declared it illegal for medical professionals to prescribe puberty blockers, as well as to participate in surgical or hormonal intervention for transgender minors. In Alabama, medical professionals can face felony charges for assisting a patient with gender affirming care. Texas has begun separating transgender children from their parents when the parents support the child’s gender transition using the Texas Department of Social Services (Thoreson, 2022b). In response, the American Medical Association (2021) issued a press release condemning the gender-affirming care bans being implemented around the nation. They asserted that “gender-affirming care is medically necessary, evidence-based care that improves the physical and mental health of transgender and gender-diverse people.” They assert that transgender and gender-diverse minors deserve gender affirming care and medical intervention (American Medical Association, 2021).
It is notable that race is a factor in trans rights within the United States, especially when we consider the high rates of violence directed against transgender adults. In 2020, more than 75% of the non-binary and transgender individuals murdered in the United States were a part of the Black, Indigenous, and people of color (BIPOC) community, with Black trans women at the highest level of risk. This illustrates how the brutality and bigotry endured by transgender individuals is rooted in intersectional suffering – that is, influenced by the intersection of gender, race, ability, class, religion, and nationality. Vulnerabilities to assault are elevated by the criminalization of actions necessitated by survival, like sex work, as well as over-policing in majority Black areas (Thoreson, 2021). Transgender individuals are not able to adequately enjoy their international human rights because of discrimination not only on an interpersonal level, but also on a systemic, legislative level.
Brazil
Brazil has ratified multiple conventions that necessitate the maintenance of sexual orientation and gender identity education at the national level. Those include the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights (ICCPR), the International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights (ICESCR), the Convention on the Rights of the Child, and the Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination against Women (CEDAW) (González Cabrera, 2022). As a result, there are potential avenues to hold Brazil accountable for the harms done to queer students. Brazil should repeal the legislation banning the teaching of CSE in schools, as well as implement laws explicitly protecting queer individuals.
Brazil’s policies regarding queer individuals have changed rapidly over the last two and a half decades. In 2004, under President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva, Brazil’s federal government founded the Brazil Without Homophobia Program. Funded by the Ministry of Education, the program was devoted to educating youth on sexual orientation and gender identity, while also sparking widespread feelings of opposition against homophobia and transphobia in schools around the country. This program led to the creation of teaching apparatuses on LGBTQIA+ concepts and issues, following the lead of other national educational initiatives. Alongside the classroom programming were open discussion seminars for schools’ faculty to create a deeper understanding of LGBTQIA+ experiences and to brainstorm ways to best support queer students (Office of the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights, 2016). Encouraging conversations around these topics facilitated safe spaces for young queer individuals in their schools and in their government. During Jair Bolsonaro‘s presidency starting in 2019, however, the policies providing protections for LGBTQIA+ individuals changed. The Bolsonaro administration repealed the Brazil Without Homophobia Program and worked to alter the rhetoric surrounding queerness on a national level. His administration has worked to ban comprehensive sexuality education (CSE) in Brazilian schools, arguing that it promoted “gender ideology” and “indoctrination” into queer culture (González Cabrera, 2022). This is a striking difference from the focus on gender and sexuality inclusion of the da Silva administration, which went as far as to create a task force to fight against the discrimination of LGBTQIA+ individuals (Office of the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights, 2016). Notably, the term “gender ideology” has been around since the 1990s and has been used to reference a feminist and “gay” attack on “traditional” family values, thereby promoting heteronormativity (Reid, 2018). Hatred of CSE is now directly tied to fear of “gender ideology” in Brazil. As a result, there are now at least 21 laws barring the teaching of CSE in Brazilian schools. In 2020, Brazil’s Supreme Court was able to strike down eight previous laws prohibiting CSE.
Bolsonaro used this dialogue against “gender ideology” and CSE as a platform for which he based his political campaign. He claimed that CSE promoted “early sexualization” and the “eroticization of children” in Brazil (González Cabrera, 2022). These terms are frequently used by state officials to create a feeling of fear in their constituents when discussing CSE to avoid accurately depicting what these programs teach. The Bolsonaro administration also supported the School Without Party movement, and multiple members of the Bolsonaro family were early supporters of the quasi-legal organization. School Without Party is the largest advocate against CSE in Brazil (Escola Sem Partido, 2019). They disseminate fear-based rhetoric against “gender ideology” and argue that schools are a place of indoctrination for Brazil’s youth. Teachers, who they refer to as an “army,” are imposing their beliefs onto students without their informed consent. In contradiction to itself, School Without Party describes on their website why they are frequently discredited as a valid source by outlining how data does not support their claims: “Our attempts to fight [CSE] by conventional means have always come up against the difficulty of proving the facts and the unavoidable refusal of our educators and education entrepreneurs to admit the existence of the problem” (Escola Sem Partido, 2019). School Without Party claims to be defenders of free thinking and cultural pluralism, while simultaneously advocating for secularism and against “ideological contamination.” This organization has aided in the codification of laws banning the teaching of CSE in Brazilian schools (González Cabrera, 2022). The impact of this organization on national policies and against LGBTQIA+ rights should raise concerns globally.
Uganda
Uganda is party to the African Charter on Human and Peoples’ Rights – a regional treaty ratified by member states of the African Union, also known as the Banjul Charter – as well as the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights (ICCPR) (Human Rights Watch, 2023). Both legally binding agreements can be applied to protections for queer individuals. Human rights organizations around the world have spoken out against Uganda’s criminalization of queer identity. Recognizing the impacts of colonization in this state is an important first step to understanding the complexity surrounding this issue. Western states and human rights bodies that are trying to force Uganda to change their laws will likely not help the situation, as Uganda is vehemently against Western imperialism. To avoid imposing colonialist practices on Uganda by viewing this issue from a western perspective, the human rights community should focus on amplifying the voices of African human rights theorists and scholars.
Uganda’s relationship with homophobia is deeply connected to its history of colonization. Uganda was known as the Kingdom of Buganda until the territory was claimed by the British in 1894, and Uganda claimed independence from the United Kingdom in October 1962 (Embassy of the Republic of Uganda, 2023). In the aftermath of colonization, Uganda was left with several pieces of anti-LGBTQIA+ legislation and anti-sodomy laws. For example, Ugandan Penal Code Act (Cap. 120) was enacted in June 1950 and states:
Section 145. Unnatural offences:
Any person who— (a) has carnal knowledge of any person against the order of nature; (b) has carnal knowledge of an animal; or (c) permits a male person to have carnal knowledge of him or her against the order of nature, commits an offence and is liable to imprisonment for life.
Section 148. Indecent practices:
Any person who, whether in public or in private, commits any act of gross indecency with another person or procures another person to commit any act of gross indecency with him or her or attempts to procure the commission of any such act by any person with himself or herself or with another person, whether in public or in private, commits an offence and is liable to imprisonment for seven years (World Intellectual Property Organization).
While this law was eventually repealed in 2010, a deeply rooted anti-LGBTQIA+ rhetoric has increased rapidly in recent years. Ugandan state officials publicly criticize queer culture as imperialistic and wrong for Africa (National Resistance Movement, 2023). In a report on state-sponsored homophobia, the International Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Trans and Intersex Association (ILGA) – a consultant group for the United Nations Economic and Social Council – examined anti-queer legislation in Uganda from the early 2000s (Carroll, 2016). The report discusses the criminalization of LGBTQIA+ culture and actions in Uganda, including the 2013 Anti-Homosexuality Act. This act legally banned non-heteronormative marriage, as well as prohibited queer sexual relations with the penalty of life imprisonment. While this law was repealed in 2014 due to bureaucratic obstacles, a new bill was quickly introduced: The Prohibition of Promotion of Unnatural Sexual Practices Bill. Although this bill never went into effect, it shows Ugandan government officials’ desire to legislate against queerness (Carroll, 2016).
In 2023, the Ugandan parliament passed the strictest anti-LGBTQIA+ legislation in the nation’s history. The bill confirms life imprisonment for queer sexual activity and increases sentences for attempted queer sexual activity to ten years imprisonment. It also criminalizes anyone who does not report people they suspect to be engaging in queer sexual activity, meaning family and loved ones can be imprisoned for not reporting the queer individuals in their lives. The penalty for those assisting queer individuals, be it financially, emotionally, or otherwise, is up to 20 years in prison (Nyeko, 2023). The bill passed through Parliament, but was called for edit by President Yoweri Kaguta Museveni, who does not want to criminalize those wishing to undergo conversion therapies to negate their queer identity. At the time of writing, Museveni had returned the bill to parliament for its final vote. Notably, Museveni’s National Resistance Movement political party prides itself on their anti-imperialistic and anti-western values. They claim that queerness is a new, western ideology that is harmful to the African continent (National Resistance Movement, 2023). However, I believe this anti-queer sentiment is a result of British colonization coupled with indoctrination into Christian religious values. It is ironic that Ugandan officials are anti-imperialistic and against LGBTQIA+ identities when homophobia is directly tied to the imperialism imposed by the British and Christianity. It would be more anti-imperialistic for Uganda to be champions of queer rights, as colonization has sought to destroy queer identities and queer ways of being.

Conclusions
This research highlights how existing international human rights law could be used to protect people’s rights worldwide based on their sexual orientation and/or gender identity if interpreted through a queer, feminist lens. However, anti-LGBTQIA+ discrimination remains prevalent worldwide, with harmful rhetoric and legislation occurring in countries such as the United States, Brazil, and Uganda. The fact that there is not international treaty for the protection of queer people – even though other marginalized minorities have benefitted from binding conventions or normative frameworks – shows how public support remains low for protecting queer rights. In itself, that is a form of discrimination worthy of attention and discussion. If the United Nations and the broader international community is truly committed to upholding human rights standards, I believe that a convention on the rights of queer individuals is necessary.
Global anti-LGBTQIA+ discrimination highlights the need to promote queer rights locally, nationally, and internationally – and always with the direct involvement of queer individuals. At the local level, for instance, the creation and support of non-governmental organizations (NGOs) can highlight community issues and foster collaboration, give voice to marginalized groups and enhance queer dignity, and strengthen local resources and support networks. At the national level, far more laws are needed to effectively protect and support queer people. This includes building LGBTQIA+ protections into federal laws and policies (such as Title IX in the United States) and establishing programs with those goals in mind (such as Brazil’s former Brazil Without Homophobia Program). It is also necessary to revoke discriminatory national laws, such as Uganda’s criminalization of homosexuality, and replace such legislation with policies that respect fundamental human rights norms. This could be accomplished by understanding Africa’s colonial history and by working with African human rights theorists and scholars to show African governments that providing protections for LGBTQIA+ people would be a way of rejecting Western imperialism, not accepting it.
The foundation for such norms already exists in international human rights frameworks and binding international law, even if they do not specifically name LGBTQIA+ individuals. The challenge is that it can be difficult to hold member states accountable to the treaties and covenants they have signed and/or ratified. Queer rights are human rights, and queer people deserve to be protected against state discrimination and violence and social marginalization. They hold the same rights as all other humans, as outlined by frameworks such as the UDHR and ensuing binding international law, and personal views on morality should not negate those protections. Research shows that it is not completely safe to be queer in this world, as some countries actively seek to discriminate against and harm their LGBTQI+ citizens. Given this, specific protections for queer people are long overdue.

References
American Medical Association. (2021, June 15). AMA Reinforces Opposition to Restrictions on
Transgender Medical Care. Retrieved from https://www.ama-assn.org/press-center/press-releases/ama-reinforces-opposition-restrictions-transgender-medical-care.
Amnesty International. (n.d.). LGBTI Rights. Retrieved from https://www.amnesty.org/en/what-we-do/discrimination/lgbti-rights/.
Amnesty International. (2001). Crimes of hate, conspiracy of silence: Torture and ill-treatment based on sexual identity. Retrieved from https://www.amnesty.org/en/wp-content/uploads/2021/06/act400162001en.pdf.
Carroll, A. (2016). State-Sponsored Homophobia, A World Survey of Sexual Orientation Laws: Criminalisation, Protection and Recognition of Same-Sex Love. International Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Trans and Intersex Association (ILGA). Retrieved from https://www.refworld.org/docid/598311a44.html.
Donnelly, J. (2001). Non-Discrimination and Sexual Orientation: Making a Place for Sexual Minorities in the Global Rights Regime.” In P. Hayden (Ed.), The Philosophy of Human Rights (pp. 547-573). St. Paul: Paragon House.
Embassy of the Republic of Uganda. (2023). History and Political Situation. Retrieved from https://washington.mofa.go.ug/uganda/history-and-political-situation.
Escola Sem Partido. (2019). Quem Somos. Retrieved from http://escolasempartido.org/quem-somos/.
González Cabrera, C. (2022, May 12). “I Became Scared, This Was Their Goal”: Efforts to Ban Gender and Sexuality Education in Brazil. Human Rights Watch. Retrieved from https://www.hrw.org/report/2022/05/12/i-became-scared-was-their-goal/efforts-ban-gender-and-sexuality-education-brazil.
Human Rights Watch. (2021, November 18). United States: Transgender People at Risk of Violence. Retrieved from https://www.hrw.org/news/2021/11/18/united-states-transgender-people-risk-violence.
Human Rights Watch. (2023, March 17). Human Rights Watch Submission to the Uganda Parliament Committee on Legal and Parliamentary Affairs on the 2023 Anti-Homosexuality Bill. Retrieved from https://www.hrw.org/news/2023/03/17/human-rights-watch-submission-uganda-parliament-committee-legal-and-parliamentary.
International Commission of Jurists. (2007). The Yogyakarta Principles: Principles on the Application of International Human Rights Law in Relation to Sexual Orientation and Gender Identity. Retrieved from https://www.refworld.org/pdfid/48244e602.pdf.
Merriam-Webster. (n.d.a). LGBTQ+. Retrieved from https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/LGBTQ%2B.
Merriam-Webster. (n.d.b). Queer. Retrieved from https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/queer.
National Resistance Movement. (2023, April 20). H.E Museveni to return the Anti-Homosexuality bill to parliament for changes before its signed into law. Retrieved from https://www.nrm.ug/news/he-museveni-return-anti-homosexuality-bill-parliament-changes-its-signed-law.
Nyeko, O. (2023, March 24). Ugandan Parliament Passes Extreme Anti-LGBT Bill. Human Rights Watch. Retrieved from https://www.hrw.org/news/2023/03/22/ugandan-parliament-passes-extreme-anti-lgbt-bill.
Office of the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights. (2016). Living Free and Equal: What States are Doing to Tackle Violence and Discrimination Against Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Transgender, and Intersex People. Retrieved from https://www.ohchr.org/sites/default/files/Documents/Publications/LivingFreeAndEqual.pdf.
Reid, G. (2018, December 10). Breaking the Buzzword: Fighting the “Gender Ideology” Myth. Human Rights Watch. Retrieved from https://www.hrw.org/news/2018/12/10/breaking-buzzword-fighting-gender-ideology-myth.
Simm, G. (2020). Queering CEDAW? Sexual orientation, gender identity and expression and sex characteristics (SOGIESC) in international human rights law. Griffith Law Review, 29(3), 374–400.
Thoreson, R. (2022a, February 8). South Dakota Embraces Attacks on Transgender Kids.
 Human Rights Watch. Retrieved from https://www.hrw.org/news/2022/02/08/south-dakota-embraces-attacks-transgender-kids.
Thoreson, R. (2022b, November 18). US State Readies first Anti-Transgender Bill of 2023. Human Rights Watch. Retrieved from https://www.hrw.org/news/2022/11/18/us-state-readies-first-anti-transgender-bill-2023.
Thoreson, R. R. (2021, November 18). “I Just Try to Make It Home Safe” Violence and the Human Rights of Transgender People in the United States. Human Rights Watch. Retrieved from https://www.hrw.org/report/2021/11/18/i-just-try-make-it-home-safe/violence-and-human-rights-transgender-people-united.
UN Human Rights. (n.d.). The struggle of trans and gender-diverse persons. Retrieved from https://www.ohchr.org/en/special-procedures/ie-sexual-orientation-and-gender-identity/struggle-trans-and-gender-diverse-persons.
United Nations General Assembly. (1984). Convention Against Torture and Other Cruel, Inhuman or Degrading Treatment or Punishment. Retrieved from https://legal.un.org/avl/pdf/ha/catcidtp/catcidtp_e.pdf.
United Nations General Assembly. (1966a). International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights. Retrieved from https://treaties.un.org/doc/publication/unts/volume%20999/volume-999-i-14668-english.pdf.
United Nations General Assembly. (1966b). International Covenant on Economic, Social, and Cultural Rights. Retrieved from https://treaties.un.org/doc/Treaties/1976/01/19760103%2009-57%20PM/Ch_IV_03.pdf.
United Nations. (1988). Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination against Women. Retrieved from https://www.un.org/womenwatch/daw/cedaw/text/econvention.htm.
United Nations. (1989). Convention on the Rights of the Child. Retrieved from https://www.ohchr.org/sites/default/files/crc.pdf.
U.S. Department of Justice Civil Rights Division & U.S. Department of Education Office for Civil Rights. (2016). Dear Colleague Letter on Transgender Students Notice of Language Assistance. Retrieved from https://www2.ed.gov/about/offices/list/ocr/letters/colleague-201605-title-ix-transgender.pdf.
World Health Organization. (2022). Gender Incongruence and Transgender Health in the ICD. Retrieved from https://www.who.int/standards/classifications/frequently-asked-questions/gender-incongruence-and-transgender-health-in-the-icd.
World Intellectual Property Organization. (n.d.). Uganda: The Penal Code Act. Retrieved fromhttps://www.wipo.int/wipolex/en/legislation/details/5241.

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Righting Wrongs: A Journal of Human Rights is an academic journal that provides space for undergraduate students to explore human rights issues, challenge current actions and frameworks, and engage in problem-solving aimed at tackling some of the world’s most pressing issues. This open-access journal is available online at www.webster.edu/rightingwrongs.
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<a id="_ftn1" href="#_ftnref1">[1]</a> LGBTQIA+ is an acronym for the umbrella of the non-normative sexuality and gender community. LGBTQIA+ stands for lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, queer/questioning, intersex, asexual/aromantic, plus (others) (Merriam-Webster, n.d.a). The term “queer” is used frequently throughout this article. While the word was once used as a slur and pejorative for homosexuals in the twentieth century, it has been taken back by the LGBTQIA+ community and is now used in an empowering context when used by community members. The term “queer” may be defined as “of, relating to, or being a person whose sexual orientation is not heterosexual and/or whose gender identity is not cisgender” (Merriam-Webster, n.d.b).
<a href="#_ftnref2" id="_ftn2">[2]</a> Patriarchy is a system of society or government in which men hold the power.
<a href="#_ftnref3" id="_ftn3">[3]</a> Title IX is the most commonly used name for the U.S. federal civil rights law that prohibits sex-based discrimination in any school or any other education program that receives funding from the federal government.
<a id="_ftn4" href="#_ftnref4">[4]</a> The World Health Organization (2022) defines gender affirming care as “any single or combination of a number of social, psychological, behavioral or medical (including hormonal treatment or surgery) interventions designed to support and affirm an individual’s gender identity.”
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<title>COMMENT – Intersectionality and Black Women in U.S. History</title>
<link>https://blogs.webster.edu/humanrights/2023/05/03/comment-intersectionality-and-black-women-in-u-s-history/</link>
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<pubDate>Wed, 03 May 2023 15:47:19 +0000</pubDate>
<category><![CDATA[Volume XIII, Issue 1]]></category>
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<description><![CDATA[Naima Dawid, Webster University – Saint Louis COMMENT – Intersectionality and Black Women in U.S. History [Download PDF] Throughout the course of my academic career, it has been uncommon for me to witness Black women – women who look like me and share the singular experiences that come with being Black women – having a […]]]></description>
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Naima Dawid, Webster University – Saint Louis

COMMENT – Intersectionality and Black Women in U.S. History
[<a href="http://blogs.webster.edu/humanrights/files/Dawid_Intersectionality-and-Black-Women-in-U.S.-History.pdf">Download PDF</a>]
Throughout the course of my academic career, it has been uncommon for me to witness Black women – women who look like me and share the singular experiences that come with being Black women – having a role in history and change-making. As I grew up, I realized that I needed to delve further into my own studies in International Relations and International Human Rights to hear these women’s voices. Sadly, I didn’t know this until I reached university; it took years to understand that it is essential to see people who look like you making a difference in this world. It helps you believe that it is possible for individuals like you to make a difference; not to be used as a tool or a steppingstone, but rather to be their own force to fight for human rights.
This piece was inspired by a visit to the Smithsonian National Museum of African American History & Culture during a Fall Break 2022 faculty-led trip to Washington, D.C. I argue that the underrepresentation of Black women in American historical memory reflects a broader omission of African American women from U.S. historical memory. This includes the lack of recognition of their participation and achievements in social movements, including the battle for Black liberation and the women’s suffrage movement. Black women have been active in various American social movements, from the nineteenth and twenty centuries to present-day Black Lives Matter organizing. Yet Black women are often ignored in U.S. history, their stories relegated to the side lines as we focus on the accomplishments of white suffragettes and Black male civil rights leaders.
Notably, Black women’s experiences and identities can best be understood through an intersectional approach.Kimberly Crenshaw (1989) coined the term “intersectionality,” which is a concept that highlights the invisibility of vulnerable people. Intersectionality can be defined as “the complex, cumulative way in which the effects of multiple forms of discrimination (such as racism, sexism, and classism) combine, overlap, or intersect especially in the experiences of marginalized individuals or groups” (Merriam-Webster, n.d.). While Black women’s experiences are informed by gender, race, and other identities, they are often categorized in singular categories that ignore their intersectional identities. Too often, those singular categories are determined by how they fit into other people’s stories – not how they tell or experienced their own.
Black Women Paved the Way
Following the emancipation of enslaved African Americans in the United States, Black people throughout the late nineteenth century sought equality before the law through legislation and the attainment of political office. During the Reconstruction Era following the U.S. Civil War, freed African Americans attempted to integrate into the social, political, and economic framework of the United States. Black and white activists fought for suffrage, aiming to ensure that African Americans and women were afforded the right to vote. This was a time when Black women took on meaningful activism and played important roles in the history of American social movements, from well-known figures such as Rosa Parks to lesser-known women who paved the way for expanded rights protection.
Activism for voting rights highlighted racial divides within the United States, with Black women given the least priority for achieving suffrage. Such activism resulted in the establishment of the American Equal Rights Association (AERA), for instance, which worked from 1866 to 1869 to secure equal voting rights irrespective of race or gender. The AERA engaged historic figures such as Susan B. Anthony and Fredrick Douglass, as well as influential Black American women including Sojourner Truth, Harriet Tubman, Maria W. Stewart, and Frances Ellen Watkin Harper. The AERA divided the suffrage movement after the ratification of the 15th amendment, however, because it prioritized the right for Black men to vote but offered no protections for Black women’s suffrage (Harley, n.d.).  Meanwhile, white women suffragists (including Elizabeth Cady Stanton and Susan B. Anthony) disapproved of the fact that African American men were granted voting rights before they were. Black women activists such as Frances Harper joined the U.S. suffrage movement to continue the fight for Black suffrage. Even though they were excluded from the mainstream (predominantly white) women’s suffragist movement in the United States at that time, many Black women nonetheless congregated to “attend and speak out” at public demonstrations, political and religious meetings, and other types of gatherings. “Their enthusiasm and political engagement within and outside suffrage campaigns was particularly concerning to whites in the post-emancipation South,” explains Sharon Harley (n.d.). The white suffragist movement, by promoting white women’s rights while ignoring Black women, upheld white supremacy, and encouraged racial discrimination.
The National Association of Colored Women, which was founded by Mary Church Terrell, is one example of the spaces Black women created for themselves to campaign for their rights while being excluded by white activists (Gray White, n.d.). Such women’s clubs provided a venue through which Black women could seek assistance through political activism on behalf of both their race and their gender. The Association gained traction with Black newspapers and had numerous branches across the United States, all while the white women’s suffrage movement promoted political reform for white women near the end of the nineteenth century. In the early 1900s, the white suffrage movement became more welcoming to Black women, yet its leaders still did not advocate for Black women voters. For Black women, however, suffrage was essential; Black activist Nannie Helen Burroughs made a meaningful statement by asking, “What can we do without it?” (Gray White, n.d.). And while Black women technically gained the right to vote with the passage of the 19th Amendment, most did not enjoy the right until 1965 with the passage of the Voting Rights Act (Gray White, n.d.).
The concept of intersectionality highlights how Black women were marginalized, in part, because of how they experienced race and gender. Rather than being embraced by the women’s suffrage movement, Black women were seen to be an extension of Black men. They were often shunned by white women activists, even though they shared similar struggles for gender equality; their race, not just their gender, prevented them from voting. It’s notable that anti-Black rhetoric and themes of white supremacy are rarely directly addressed when the suffrage movement is taught in school. The women’s movement is largely considered a progressive social movement, and historical narratives frequently ignore its hugely problematic aspects. To tell the story of the U.S. women’s suffrage movement in full, it is necessary to include its racial discrimination and the harms it perpetrated against Black women.
Black women played a crucial role in the struggle for racial equality during the American Civil Rights movement, but often faced sexism even within their own communities. Women were less likely to get involved in social movements during the 1950s and 1960s because they were expected to remain in their traditional, gender roles as child bearers and homemakers. Michael Eric Dyson (2000) writes that even renowned civil rights icon Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. was “absolutely a male chauvinist,” believing wives should stay home and care for children while men protested (see also Holladay, 2009). The sexism that permeated the Civil Rights movement severely restricted the roles that African American women were able to perform. Despite these difficulties, activists such as Mary McLead Bethune, Joanne Robinson, Rosa Parks, Daisy Bates, and Ruby Hurley persisted in their efforts to eradicate segregation in the United States. That these women were subjected to oppression in broader society, as well as within their own community, demonstrates how Black women fought against adversity on multiple fronts.
During the Civil Rights movement and in the years afterward, Black women were often deemed as being unimportant or as playing a secondary role to Black men activists. Rosa Parks was a catalyst for the movement when she refused to give up her bus seat for a white person, and she is dubbed the “mother of the Civil Rights movement” (National Women’s History Museum, n.d) – a gendered term that emphasizes her womanhood rather than her hard work. Mary Bethune, a pioneering educator who labored to obtain equality in education and was head of the National Youth Administration, is rarely mentioned in history lessons about the right to education (National Women’s History Museum, n.d.).  In the 1950s and 1960s, most people had the perception that women were ignorant and more likely to take on support roles within the Civil Rights movement, rather than leadership roles. Yet despite these sexist assumptions, some Black women activists were able to make enormous strides in the civil rights fight. Daisy Bates, for instance, was president of the Arkansas chapter of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP) and advised the nine students who desegregated Central High School in Little Rock, Arkansas, in 1957 (Stanford University, n.d.). Writing this essay, it occurs to me that although I have learned about school de-segregation many times before, I did not hear about Bates until I visited the National Museum of African American History and Culture in Washington, D.C. Black women like Bates tend to be overlooked, even when their work made significant events in U.S. history possible.
Black Women Today
Today, African American women are active in social movements such as Black Lives Matter (BLM) and its associated “Say Her Name” campaign. Started in 2014 and propelled to nationwide prominence with the 2020 murder of George Floyd, BLM exposes the injustices and police brutality that are experienced primarily by Black men (Brown & Ray, 2020). While the BLM movement centers on the experiences of Black men – including Michael Brown and Eric Garner, both killed by the police – it has been criticized for not highlighting Black women who are also victims of police brutality. That criticism fueled the organization of the “Say My Name” campaign, which centers the voices of Black women who have been victims of physical and sexual assault. This includes the death of Breonna Taylor, whose 2020 killing by police prompted the #SayHerName campaign (Brown & Ray, 2020). Not only does the “Say Her Name” campaign bring attention to racial injustices faced by Black women, but it also exposes wrongs faced by Black people who are impoverished, homosexual, or transgender. I feel it is important to stress that we should not make the same mistake twice, especially when it comes to the exclusion of certain groups of people from historic rights movements. By adopting an inclusive stance and showing that people experience police violence in distinctly gendered ways, we can develop a broader picture of police violence – one that ought to draw equal public attention and outrage as the deaths of men (Chatelain & Asoka, 2015).
My experiences in Washington, DC, helped me better understand how Black women are portrayed in U.S. history. At the Smithsonian National Museum of African American History & Culture, the exhibit “Defending Freedom and Defining Freedom: The Era of Segregation” was devoted to the battles and challenges that Black American women fought during the Civil Rights movement. I watched a short film that referred to women whose names were unfamiliar to me and whose involvement in the fight for Black emancipation was unknown to me; why hadn’t I learned about women like Daisy Bates and Gloria Richardson before this? As I learned about these Black women who had been fearless catalysts for change within this movement, I reflected on my own educational journey over the previous 15 years. My education, in my opinion, did an inadequate job of teaching me about the significant contributions that Black women made in the Civil Rights movement – a truth that I did not see until my eyes were opened in this national museum. I believe the study of Black history is presented in a one-dimensional manner in schools, one that highlights the contributions of influential Black men (and white allies) and obscures the work of Black women.
In conclusion, I suggest that the contributions of Black men and white women hide the significance of Black women’s roles in American history. The triumphs and challenges of Black women can only be understood by evaluating their own lives, which requires us to take an intersectional approach and consider how their race and gender impacted their lived experiences. If we wish to have an inclusive and accurate understanding of the social movements that shaped this nation, we must learn the stories of Black women.
References
Brown, M., & Ray, R. (2020). Breonna Taylor, police brutality, and the importance of #SayHerName. Brookings, September 25. Retrieved from https://www.brookings.edu/blog/how-we-rise/2020/09/25/breonna-taylor-police-brutality-and-the-importance-of-sayhername/.
Chatelain, M. & Asoka, K., (2015). Women and Black Lives Matter: An interview with Marcia Chatelain. Dissent, August 10. Retrieved from https://www.dissentmagazine.org/article/women-black-lives-matter-interview-marcia-chatelain.
Crenshaw, K. (1989). Demarginalizing the Intersection of Race and Sex: A Black Feminist Critique of Antidiscrimination Doctrine, Feminist Theory and Antiracist Policies. University of Chicago Legal Forum, 1: 139-167.
Dyson, M. E. (2000). I May Not Get There with You: The True Martin Luther King, Jr. New York: The Free Press.
Gray White, D. (n.d.). The 1965 Voting Rights Act made Voting a Reality for Black Women. Rutgers Arts and Sciences. Retrieved from https://sas.rutgers.edu/news-a-events/news/newsroom/faculty/3355-the-1965-voting-rights-act-made-voting-a-reality-for-black-women#:~:text=The%201965%20Voting%20Rights%20Act%20Made%20Voting%20a%20Reality%20for%20Black%20Women.
Harley, S. (n.d.). African American Women and the Nineteenth Amendment. U.S. National Park Service. Retrieved from https://www.nps.gov/articles/african-american-women-and-the-nineteenth-amendment.htm.
Holladay, J. (2009). Sexism in the Civil Rights Movement: A Discussion Guide. Learning for Justice, July 7. Retrieved from https://www.learningforjustice.org/magazine/sexism-in-the-civil-rights-movement-a-discussion-guide#:~:text=The%20sexism%20that%20was%20present,white%2C%20male%2Ddominated%20culture.&text=Movement%20leaders%20set%20out%20to,focusing%20primarily%20on%20racial%20segregation.
National Women’s History Museum. (n.d.) Standing up for Change: African American Women and the Civil Rights Movement. Google Arts & Culture. Retrieved from https://artsandculture.google.com/story/standing-up-for-change-african-american-women-and-the-civil-rights-movement-national-women%E2%80%99s-history-museum/nAVBFcoqbi5yJg?hl=en.
Merriam-Webster. (n.d.). Intersectionality Definition & Meaning. Retrieved from https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/intersectionality.
Stanford University. (n.d.). Bates, Daisy. The Martin Luther King, Jr. Research and Education Institute. Retrieved from https://kinginstitute.stanford.edu/encyclopedia/bates-daisy.
© Copyright 2023 Righting Wrongs: A Journal of Human Rights. All rights reserved. 
Righting Wrongs: A Journal of Human Rights is an academic journal that provides space for undergraduate students to explore human rights issues, challenge current actions and frameworks, and engage in problem-solving aimed at tackling some of the world’s most pressing issues. This open-access journal is available online at www.webster.edu/rightingwrongs.
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<title>Latin American Narratives About Abortion: The Argentina Case</title>
<link>https://blogs.webster.edu/humanrights/2023/05/03/comment-latin-american-narratives-about-abortion/</link>
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<dc:creator><![CDATA[lkingston54]]></dc:creator>
<pubDate>Wed, 03 May 2023 15:42:42 +0000</pubDate>
<category><![CDATA[Volume XIII, Issue 1]]></category>
<guid isPermaLink="false">https://blogs.webster.edu/humanrights/?p=1379</guid>
<description><![CDATA[Anabelen Rodríguez, University of Birmingham – United Kingdom Latin American Narratives About Abortion: The Argentina Case [Download PDF] Reproductive rights are a human rights concern in most Latin American[1] countries, with women and pregnant people often vulnerable to negative health consequences associated with unsafe abortion practices. This essay considers the development of abortion policy in […]]]></description>
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Anabelen Rodríguez, University of Birmingham – United Kingdom

Latin American Narratives About Abortion: The Argentina Case
[<a href="http://blogs.webster.edu/humanrights/files/Rodrigueznew_Latin-American-Narratives.pdf">Download PDF</a>]
Reproductive rights are a human rights concern in most Latin American<a href="#_ftn1" id="_ftnref1">[1]</a> countries, with women and pregnant people often vulnerable to negative health consequences associated with unsafe abortion practices. This essay considers the development of abortion policy in Latin America through discursive institutionalism to better understand the impact of ideas and discourse on gendered human rights. To do this, I first explore the importance of discursive institutionalism. Discursive institutionalism suggests that discourse analysis is a powerful tool for understanding how ideas have a unique and relevant impact on policies (Schmidt, 2008). Coming from a post-structural and constructivist tradition, discursive institutionalism argues that policies are made within specific policy paradigms internalized by politicians, state managers, policy experts, and others (Hay, 2006). I then outline the political and reproductive rights context of Latin America, including the specific case study of Argentina – a country that legalized abortion in 2020. Using the lens of discursive institutionalism, we can understand shifts and parallels within the Catholic Church and the state government, starting in the 1990s and continuing to recent legislative change.
Frameworks of Discursive Institutionalism
First, why discursive institutionalism? As Viven A. Schmidt (2008) frames it, this type of institutionalism overcomes the limitations of the main institutional approaches in political science (rational choice institutionalism, historical institutionalism, and sociological institutionalism) and explains institutional change through the analysis of discourses and power in their specific context. Colin Hay (2006) has a similar argument from the constructivist tradition; the name he gives to this type of institutionalism is “constructivist institutionalism.” Even though they differ in the importance given to ideas, Hay’s (2006) explanation about construction and policy change also applies to discursive institutionalism. Hay (2006) explains that policy is made within the context of policy paradigms. In this sense, ideational change precedes institutional change. “Policy paradigms are the cognitive filters that the actors in the policy process have. These shape reality in the sense that the goals of policies, the instrument to meet these goals, and the nature of the problem are defined inside these frameworks of ideas” (Hay, 2006). The role of material reality, then, is open to interpretation. Who dominates the ideational change and wins in the interpretation of reality stage, then sets the agenda for policy? As the next section illustrates, different actors can perform different roles in ideational change with differing influences and results.
The role of rational choice is an important factor when explaining institutional change through discourses and ideas. Indeed, it is relevant to set an important disclaimer about material reality and to understand the constructivist roots of discursive institutionalism. The disclaimer about material reality is that the constructivist tradition doesn’t deny it exists; one of the assumptions that most constructivists share is that social constructions influence people’s daily lives. That a concept is socially constructed doesn’t mean it doesn’t have real-life consequences. For example, the fact that restrictive laws about abortion are constructed following a specific conservative interpretation of reality doesn’t mean that they don’t have real-life consequences on the lives of pregnant people; on the contrary, its outcomes are tangible in the rates of unsafe abortion. Having said this, the debate between rational choice versus constructionism is not about there is a material reality versus there is not, but rather this debate is about whether institutional change is guided by rationality and self-interest as opposed to institutional change guided by the predominant discourse.
To understand why discursive institutionalism is more accurate, we must understand that the key assumptions of rational choice theory; “rationality and self-interest” are shaped by discourse (Lowndes et al., 2018, p. 39). As Hay (2002) argues, “most rationalist explanations do not distinguish between reality and actors’ perceptions of it. Instead, they assume that actors have access, if not to perfect information, then at least to relatively full and accurate information” (p. 196). Joel Best (2007) also considers how social problems are constructed rather than the result of individual rational choice. In this sense, when analyzing a social problem, the focus should be “not on conditions (of the problem that is being constructed), but on claims about conditions” (Best, 2007, p. 10). In this case, the claims about conditions are the discourses regarding abortion. This is not because the conditions don’t exist, but because these conditions need to be interpreted to be problematized and negotiated in the public sphere and in policy development.
Political and Reproductive Rights Context of Latin America
Analyzing the Latin American political and reproductive rights context is crucial for understanding why some abortion narratives succeeded and others failed in the lead-up to the country’s legalization of abortion in 2020. Latin American countries have similar material and institutional realities where discourse is situated. As Best (2007) argues, all stages social problems’ constructions are influenced by resources and rhetoric. The impact of discourse must also be understood in how power relationships are configurated because discourse is not presented in a vacuum, but instead always in a specific context where it interacts with other discourses and resources. As Schmidt (2008) explains:
Specific institutional settings are also important. Discourses succeed when speakers address their remarks to the right audiences (specialized or general public) at the right times in the right ways. Their messages must be both convincing in cognitive terms (justifiable) and persuasive in normative terms (appropriate and/or legitimate) (p. 313).
Two important characteristics of Latin America are central for understanding developments regarding abortion: The predominance of Catholicism and the region’s colonial legacy, especially when it comes to understanding race and class. First, Latin America is predominantly a Catholic region. It is home to more than 425 million Catholics – nearly 40 percent of the world’s total Catholic population (Pew Research Center, 2014). This is important because it means that normative Catholic values inevitably affect policy, especially the ones related to sensitive topics for the Church such as abortion. The position of the Church, then, is highly important in political contexts, and its influence in the region could be counted as a resource for the anti-abortion movement. Second, the region has a colonial past that is intertwined with European countries, which reinforces Catholic normative ideas and intwines those norms with people’s culture, daily life, and identities. Colonial understandings of class and race are also deeply connected; colonialism in the region produced the idea of race and made it deeply engrained in social structures, including work roles (Quijano, 2014).
In Latin America, the impacts of Catholicism and colonialism factor into whether particular discourses regarding abortion succeed or fail. Working women – that is, those who are less likely to access safe abortions when the procedure is criminalized – are also racialized, giving them intersectional and doubly marginalized identities as being both poor and women of color. They are positioned in more vulnerable social situations with less power to mobilize in the public sphere. Meanwhile, criminalized abortion laws are rarely enforced for middle class women – even though the practice is widespread. When wealthier women have access to safe abortions in private clinics, they often see little reason to press for liberalized abortion laws. It is primarily poor women who suffer the consequences of clandestine abortions (Htun, 2003).
Argentina: Church and Government Narratives, 1990s versus 2020
The process of institutional construction through discourse becomes evident with the legalization of abortion in Argentina. Consider the discourses in Argentina during the 1990s, when calls to legalize abortion failed, and in 2020 when the initiative was successful. As Daniel Beland (2009) argues, “ideas have a major role in shaping policy change but do not constitute the only possible source of change. Ideas only become a decisive causal factor under specific institutional and political conditions” (p. 702). Therefore, the comparison between these time periods is useful because it allows us to understand discourses in their proper contexts, including according to who created the discourse and who their intended audience was. Indeed, “discourse is not only what you say…it includes to whom you say it, how, why and were in the process of policy construction and political communication in the ‘public sphere’” (Schmidt, 2008, p. 310).
The Catholic Church in Argentina
The 1980s and ‘90s were important decades for the liberalization of politics, economics, and laws in Argentina, as well as for the global feminist movement. Different countries in Latin America became democracies and individual rights and freedoms became core values. Yet at the same time, the “political clout” of abortion opponents grew, especially after John Paul II became Pope and anti-abortion activists organized globally (Htun, 2003, p. 6). The discourse of the Church was in every form against abortion and the influence of Pope John Paul II was crucial. He targeted Latin America and its churches’ progressive movements (such as their engagement with liberation theory) and made efforts to boost the anti-abortion movement in the region. Merike Blofield (2008) explains that the Pope “had a significant influence on the balance of power between conservative and reformist clergy (through papal appointments, organizational changes, and persuasion and pressure) and consequently on domestic politics in Catholic countries” (p. 400).
Even though the Church was still against abortion in 2020, its discourse had become substantially different. Pope Francis was the first leader of the Roman Catholic Church from the Southern Hemisphere, as well as a Jesuit – the strand of Catholicism that advocates for social justice and liberal viewpoints. This is important because his identity associates the Church with a progressive institution (see The Conversation, 2022; Gibson, 2014). Pope Francis also declared abortion forgiveness, allowing priests to absolve women who had an abortion and recognizing women’s decisions to have an abortion as a “moral ordeal” undertaken under various pressures (ABC News, 2016; BBC, 2016).
These declarations are extremely important because they set a precedent in the Church’s opinion regarding abortion. Two impacts can be identified: First, there is a normative impact on how the world should be. That is, women shouldn’t live in through a “moral ordeal” after having an abortion since there is pressure that leads them to this decision. That pressure could be interpreted as poverty, lack of services and options, and other factors. In a sense, the judgement behind Pope Francis’ words could be interpreted as judgement against the injustices that women face – and recognizing these injustices is the first step to political action. Such normative ideas attach values to political action and legitimate policy change; “normative ideas speak to how (first level) policies meet the aspirations and ideals of the general public and how (second level) programs as well as (first level) policies resonate with a deeper core of (third level) principles and norms of public life, whether the newly emerging values of a society or the long-standing ones in the societal repertoire’ (Schmidt, 2008, p. 307).
The second impact of the Pope’s discourse is his influence on the public, including Catholics who could interpret his words as the normalization of reproductive rights. It could mean acceptance of the idea that, with or without restrictive laws, women will have abortions and they deserve forgiveness. As Oscar L. Larsson (2015) writes, “the ideas themselves come to exert their own influence, transcending the power of those who originated them…[I]deas are constitutive of reality, such that they are both subjective and intersubjective” (p. 176). Ideas in this sense are also intersubjective; the literalism of Pope Francis is important not only because of what he directly says but also because of how different groups of people can interpret it and act in response.
Argentina’s Government
Government discourse has normative and cognitive components on the topic of abortion. Normative in the sense that laws send powerful messages about right and wrong, but also cognitive because the government is tasked to justify how its policies are best fit to resolve a problem. The Argentinian government has had a strong normative influence on abortion laws. Its civil and criminal codes sometimes involve regulating women’s bodies, reflecting the principles the country chooses to morally guide society. Those legal codes structure social action and transmit common values, providing moral or cognitive templates for interpretation and action (Htun, 2003; Hall & Taylor, 1996). The law “tells stories about the culture that helped to shape it…stories about who we are, where we came from, and where we are going” (Oldham, 1990, p. 8). The civil and criminal laws of Latin America “thus have a strong ethical component, making ideas an important part of debates about legal change” (Htun, 2003, p. 3). When making legal decisions regarding abortion, the government is also changing normative ideas in the country. “Due to the hortatory nature of civil and criminal laws in Latin America, gender-related legal reform involves more than a mere policy shift,” writes Mala Htun (2003). “It can represent a transformation in the social and moral norms governing an important sphere of human behavior” (p. 11).
Cognitive ideas provide the recipes, guidelines, and maps for political action and serve to justify policies and programs by speaking to their interest-based logic and necessity (Schmidt, 2008, p. 306). In the case of Argentina, the cognitive component historically justified the stance that abortion shouldn’t be legalized. During the ‘90s, President Carlos Menem sustained very explicit discourse against the rise of the pro-choice global movement and in “favor of life” through various actions, speeches, and symbols. In 1998, Menem issued a presidential decree declaring March 25 the “Day of the Unborn Child,” chosen to coincide with the Catholic Feast of the Annunciation. The decree (Decreto 1406/98) declared that “the international community has identified the child as a dignified subject of special consideration” (quoted in Htun, 2003, p. 162). He also proposed that Latin American presidents gather for the Fourth Ibero-American Summit in Cartagena, Colombia, to sign a declaration condemning abortion. Although Menem was unable to convince the other presidents, he received a letter from Pope John Paul II thanking him for “his initiatives aimed at promoting family values and defending life” (Htun, 2003, p. 161).
Menem’s anti-abortion discourse in the 1990s stands in stark contrast to later presidential action on this issue. Menem’s efforts are an example of the limitations of the rationalist institutional approach in comparison to the discursive institutional one. His government was part of the transition to democracy and liberalization after years of dictatorship in Argentina, which praised liberal values. However, this wasn’t the case with abortion. This might be explained through the assertion that “policymakers operate according to a logic of moral or social appropriateness, not a logic of consequentiality’ (Campbell, 2002, p. 24). In 2020, President Alberto Fernandez supported the feminist movement and presented initiatives to Congress for the legalization of abortion. Fernandez was part of the Peronist party, an Argentinian leftist organization that worked closely with progressive social movements. His performance in favor of abortion legalization could be understood through the analysis that “actors are more likely to favor policy interpretations that best conform to their cognitive schema and political beliefs” (Campbell, 2002, p. 24). Further, “[b]ecause political decisions are made by people who are subject to the limits of bounded rationality, they inevitably use cognitive and normative heuristics and shortcuts to form their opinions” (Campbell, 2002, p. 24).
The case of the Peronist party is also a clear example of how there is a way to overcome the ideas versus material interests debate through discursive institutionalism. The Peronist party is probably one with the most influential parties in Argentinian contemporary history and it is known as the working-class party. Juan Perón, the president who gave the name to this political party, “transformed Argentina’s economy, social structure, and political culture in ways that continue to shape Argentine reality” (Karush & Chamosa, 2010, p. 2). This party, however, was polarized in its position regarding abortion. Fernandez and the Peronists used the idea of social justice, a key claim of the Peronist party during its whole history, to say that abortion access is also social justice issue for women (see Bellucci, 1997). In this sense, the idea of social justice that historically constituted the Peronist discourse influenced the Peronist working-class identity to support legal abortion. We can therefore see that ideas, when collapsed with certain identities, don’t have to be mutually exclusive with material interests; actually, ideas and material interests can interact and interact with one another.
Conclusion
Ideas and discourse play a decisive role in policy development. Discursive institutionalism helps us understand these impacts by paying attention to cognitive and normative ideas and their relation to power, resources, and rhetoric. This approach pays detailed attention to discourse in the evolution and construction of social problems and policy. Using the Latin American political context, and Argentina specifically as a case study, we see that discourses related to the Church and government have influenced changing views of (and laws related to) abortion rights. While more research could help us better understand how the feminist movement can more efficiently utilize discourse to support abortion access in Latin America, this analysis gives us insight into the shifts needed to have a more equal battle for social change.
References
ABC News. (2015, September 2). Pope Francis allows abortion forgiveness. Video. YouTube. Retrieved from https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=z9ZOzYQkO6U&t=1s.
BBC. (2016, November 21). Pope Francis allows priests to forgive abortion. Retrieved from https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-38054640.
Béland, D. (2009). Ideas, Institutions, and Policy Change. Journal of European Public Policy, 16(5), 701-718.
Best, J. (2007). Social Problems. W. W. Norton & Company.
Blofield, M. (2008). Women’s Choices in Comparative Perspective: Abortion Policies in Late-Developing Catholic Countries. Comparative Politics, 40(4), 399-419.
Britannica. (n.d.) List of countries in Latin America. Retrieved from https://www.britannica.com/biography/German-Arciniegas-Angueyra.
Bellucci, M. (1997). Women’s Struggles to Decide About Their Own Bodies: Abortion and Sexual Rights in Argentina. Reproductive Health Matters, 5(10), 99-106
Campbell, J. (2002). Ideas, Politics and Public Policy. Annual Review of Sociology, 28(1), 21-38.
The Conversation. (2022, March 18). Who are the Jesuits? Retrieved from https://theconversation.com/who-are-the-jesuits-177667. 
Gibson, D. (2014, March 12). To understand Pope Francis, look to the Jesuits. National Catholic Reporter. Retrieved from https://www.ncronline.org/news/vatican/understand-pope-francis-look-jesuits.
Hall, P. A., and Taylor, R. C. R. (1996). Political Science and the Three New Institutionalisms. Political Studies, 44(5), 936-957.
Hay, C. (2006). Constructive Institutionalism. In R. Rhodes, S. Binder, & B. Rockman (Eds.), The Oxford Handbook of Political Institutions (pp. 56-74). Constructive Institutionalism. Oxford University Press.
Htun, M. (2003). Sex and the State: Abortion, Divorce, and the Family Under Latin American Dictatorships and Democracies. Cambridge University Press.
Karush, M., & Chamosa, O. (Eds.). (2010). The New Cultural History of Peronism: Power and Identity in Mid-Twentieth Century Argentina. Duke University Press.
Larsson, O. L. (2015). Using Post-Structuralism to Explore the Full Impact of Ideas on Politics. Critical Review, 27(2), 174-197.
Lowndes, V., Marsh, D., Stoker, G., & Sanders, D. (2018). Theory and Methods in Political Science, 4th edition. Palgrave Macmillan.
Oldham, M. (1990). Abortion and Divorce in Western Law: American Failures, European Challenges. By Mary Ann Glendon. Book review. The Cambridge Law Journal, 49(3), 534-536.
Pew Research Center. (2014, November 14). Religion in Latin America: Widespread Change in a Historically Catholic Region. Retrieved from https://www.pewresearch.org/religion/2014/11/13/religion-in-latin-america/.
Quijano, A. (2014). Colonialidad del poder, eurocentrismo y América Latina. Cuestiones y horizontes de la dependencia histórico-estructural a la colonialidad/descolonialidad del poder. Buenos Aires: CLASCO. Retrieved from http://biblioteca.clacso.edu.ar/clacso/se/20140507042402/eje3-8.pdf.
Schmidt, V. A. (2008). Discursive Institutionalism: The Explanatory Power of Ideas and Discourse. Annual Review of Political Science, 11(1), 303-326.
© Copyright 2023 Righting Wrongs: A Journal of Human Rights. All rights reserved. 
Righting Wrongs: A Journal of Human Rights is an academic journal that provides space for undergraduate students to explore human rights issues, challenge current actions and frameworks, and engage in problem-solving aimed at tackling some of the world’s most pressing issues. This open-access journal is available online at www.webster.edu/rightingwrongs.
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<a href="#_ftnref1" id="_ftn1">[1]</a> “Latin America” is generally understood to consist of the continent of South America, as well as Mexico, Central America, and the islands of the Caribbean whose inhabitants speak a Romance language such as Spanish (Britannica, n.d.).
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<title>FILM REVIEW – Da 5 Bloods</title>
<link>https://blogs.webster.edu/humanrights/2023/05/03/film-review-da-5-bloodsthe-shaping-of-palestinian-identity/</link>
<comments>https://blogs.webster.edu/humanrights/2023/05/03/film-review-da-5-bloodsthe-shaping-of-palestinian-identity/#respond</comments>
<dc:creator><![CDATA[lkingston54]]></dc:creator>
<pubDate>Wed, 03 May 2023 15:34:19 +0000</pubDate>
<category><![CDATA[Volume XIII, Issue 1]]></category>
<guid isPermaLink="false">https://blogs.webster.edu/humanrights/?p=1378</guid>
<description><![CDATA[Alexis Maly, Webster University – Saint Louis FILM REVIEW – Da 5 Bloods [Download PDF] The Vietnam War is often remembered as a controversial conflict that almost tore apart American society. To protect the United States’ image as a “righteous” and “good” benefactor, American memories and narratives of the Vietnam War have been reshaped and […]]]></description>
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Alexis Maly, Webster University – Saint Louis

FILM REVIEW – Da 5 Bloods
[<a href="http://blogs.webster.edu/humanrights/files/Maly_Film-review_Da-5-Bloods.pdf">Download PDF</a>]
The Vietnam War is often remembered as a controversial conflict that almost tore apart American society. To protect the United States’ image as a “righteous” and “good” benefactor, American memories and narratives of the Vietnam War have been reshaped and recast. Much of this reshaping has been achieved through America’s film industry and its role in the production of memory. One such movie that showcases this is the 2020 Spike Lee film Da Five Bloods, which tells the story of four Black Vietnam War veterans – Paul, Otis, Eddie, and Melvin – who return to Vietnam to recover the remains of their unit leader, Norman, and recover missing gold.<a href="#_ftn1" id="_ftnref1">[1]</a> (Paul’s son, David, joins them later in the movie.) This group of men are known as the “Bloods”. In this film, Lee attempts to highlight the largely forgotten experience of Black soldiers in Vietnam with underlying narratives of the American Civil Rights and Black Power movements. Despite these intentions, however, much of the plot illustrates how U.S. memories of the Vietnam War have largely been shaped to align with an American imperialist perspective that centers on U.S. dominance and moral superiority.
One way the film aids in the creation of American memories surrounding the Vietnam War is through framing the Vietnamese people as “other” and the “enemy”. This creation of the Vietnamese “other” is evident in an early interaction between a Vietnamese merchant and Paul. The Vietnamese merchant tries to persuade Paul to buy a live chicken, and Paul repeatedly rejects the merchant’s attempts. The encounter ends with the merchant yelling at the group, accusing them of killing his mother and father. In the scene, the viewer observes how the interaction causes Paul to become frustrated and very uncomfortable due to his PTSD; the viewer starts to sympathize with Paul because of how the merchant is portrayed as rudely trying to force the chicken on him. This leads to a contrast between the Vietnamese people and Black American soldiers, with the Vietnamese being seen as hostile and inconsiderate while the American soldiers are framed as good people caught in a bad situation. This contrast continues throughout the film, including when the group finds the missing gold and is ambushed by armed Vietnamese men who claim that the gold belongs to them – not to American soldiers or the American government. The question of which country rightfully owns the gold is answered in the ensuing gunfight; the Vietnamese leader is the first to use his weapon, and by the end of the fight all but one of the Vietnamese men are killed. In this confrontation, the divide between Americans and Vietnamese is distinctly apparent. The Vietnamese make the first move that leads to the fight, and they are the ones who end up being killed or having to flee. It is a victory for the Americans, and this victory solidifies the idea of American ownership of the gold. Notably, nothing is mentioned about the fact that the gold was supposed to go to the Viet Cong in the first place.
By contrasting the Vietnamese against the Americans, the familiar narrative of American dominance and superiority as a “righteous” nation is retold and reinforced. Otis, Eddie, Melvin, Paul, and David are framed as only trying to do the honorable thing in recovering and repatriating their former leader’s remains. The narrative that the Bloods are seeking gold that is owed to them by the American government – for the racism and other hardships they experienced before, during, and after the war – then makes this an honorable quest, too. Though there are moments throughout the film that acknowledge the atrocities committed by American soldiers and the U.S. government in Vietnam, these instances suggest that the United States has fully acknowledged and atoned for its sins. For instance, a Vietnamese leader asks if they know about the Mỹ Lai Massacre and labels American soldiers “killers of innocent children and babies” (Lee, 2020, 1:43:46). In response, Paul claims that he knows “all about Mỹ Lai” and that “there were atrocities on both sides” (Lee, 2020, 1:43:50). Notably, Viet Thanh Nguyen (2016) notes that “when forced to look at these atrocities, a fairly typical American response is to say we did not do this or they did this too. This is the shock of misrecognition, seeing one’s reflection in a cracked mirror and confronting one’s disordered self” (p. 114). Paul’s response is then typically American, as it allows the nation to retain its authority so that it can continue to involve itself in the affairs of other nations. Not once during the film is it implicitly or explicitly acknowledged that America was the loser in the Vietnam war. America is always the victor, and the Vietnamese remain the necessary victims of America’s reframing of the war.
This narrative is especially apparent in the way the film creates a redemption arc for Paul, who is a very tortured character. Halfway through the film, it is revealed that Paul accidentally shot and killed Norman while they were engaging with enemy fire, for which he has never forgiven himself. Later in the movie, Paul is bitten by a snake and hallucinates meeting Norman, who forgives him. Meanwhile, Vietnamese men find Paul and force him to dig his own grave. As Paul is digging, he is shot and killed while singing a hymn. During these scenes, the viewer begins to grow more sympathetic toward Paul and even begins to empathize with him. What Paul had done was an accident, and he was finally able to make peace with himself. Viewers want to see Paul live now that he has redeemed himself, only to see his story tragically end at the hands of the Vietnamese. Paul’s narrative can then be seen as analogous to the creation of a redemptive arc for America with the Vietnam War. For America, the Vietnam War was a tragic mistake, but like Paul it has atoned for its atrocities and should no longer be judged for them. The Vietnamese are the bad guys, not America. Not only does this position the United States as having nothing to apologize for, but it also recreates a narrative where America is at the center of the story. All that needs to be known about the Vietnamese is that they are, and remain, “the enemy”.
Spike Lee’s film Da Five Bloods attempts to create a new narrative of America’s involvement in the Vietnam War by highlighting the role Black soldiers played in the nation’s armed forces. While Lee’s attempt to recreate the narrative is admirable, he fails to view the Vietnam War from the viewpoint of anyone other than Americans. This allows audiences to continue to see America as a morally righteous imperial power and allows them to turn a “bad” war into a “good” one. This is largely accomplished by the film’s portrayal of the Vietnamese as enemies and the “other,” representing the United States as the moral victor of the war. Another way this reshaping is accomplished is through Paul’s redemption arc in the film, which can be seen as an analogy for how America has reinvented its narrative of the war.
References
Lee, S. (Director). (2020). Da 5 Bloods [Film]. Netflix
Nguyen, V. T. (2016). Nothing Ever Dies: Vietnam and the Memory of War. Cambridge: Harvard University Press.
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<a href="#_ftnref1" id="_ftn1">[1]</a> During the war, the Bloods attempted to recover (and steal) gold that went down with a crashed U.S. transport plane. The gold was originally meant to be payment to American allies in Vietnam, the Viet Cong. In their initial hunt for the gold, the unit is attacked by Vietnamese soldiers and Norman is killed.

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