Bisexual Rights
“All human beings are born free and equal in dignity and rights.
They are endowed with reason and conscience and should act towards one another in a spirit of brotherhood.” Article 1 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. “Everyone has the right to life, liberty, and the security of a person.” Article 3 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. All thirty articles of the document could be listed and give rights to each and every human. Every law, rule, or right in the document should be held up by everyone in the universe, seeing as it is a universal document that everyone agrees to at birth.
Many people find it hard to let others have these rights, even if they aren’t necessarily against them. The Universal Declaration of Human Rights does state that everyone is created equal, so why do so many people think they are better than others, when in reality they aren’t? It may be an older topic to argue about, but LGBT+ members are still being affected daily by the decisions of the people against them. LGBT+ people are harassed on a daily basis, and very little is done about it. It’s seen as a normal assault, non-important to society. Though many speak out against bullying and harassment for gays, lesbians, transgenders, etc., bisexuals get little to no help in harassment.
Bisexuals shouldn’t be discriminated against because of something as simple as orientation, it is almost never the choice of the person, and they shouldn’t suffer limitations from it in varying activities. Bisexuals are affected on a day-to-day basis, many disrespect the orientation simply because they disagree with it, and it’s not a good enough reason to be impartial to it.According to the Association of American Universities, every three in four LGBT students experienced harassment. Out of 150,000 participants in the survey, 25% of all bisexuals reported being sexually assaulted. College students cannot even take courses in school without experiencing some form of harassment.
Bisexuality is not an unnatural thing, as stated in history; Hans Christian Andersen(A famous fairytale writer), Edna St. Vincent Millay(A poetry writer), Alfred Kinsey(An American biologist and professor), Sir Alec Guinness(An English actor), and John Maynard Keynes(A British economist), were all either openly bisexual or had documented it, meaning that bisexuality stretched fairly far back. Non-Heterosexuals are often limited from activities that they want to participate in. Being bisexual, or anything considering orientation shouldn’t limit you in simple things like jobs, sports, schooling, things that are seen as a privilege to so many. Things that people get limited from on a normal basis, because they aren’t the perfect definition of normal.
‘DADT’, a policy that was initiated by Bill Clinton to ‘help’ the military keep up good morale and discipline. Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell. It prohibited the openly bisexual and gay from talking about their orientation, if you were either, you were forced to keep your mouth closed unless you wanted to be out of the force. The policy was in act from 1993 to 2011, for almost 20 years LGBT didn’t have any rights in the military to speak of themselves. Many people still fear coming out, for reasons like the study done by GLSEN, 86% of our LGBT youth report being harassed in or at school.
The average of all students bullied in comparison is only 27% according to the National Center for Educational Statistics. The difference is overwhelming, children everywhere are made miserable just because of the orientation that they cannot help. Overall three in four LGBT students report sexual harassment according to the Association of American Universities, which also states that 69% of bisexuals that responded to a survey stated that they had experienced harassment upon enrollment in college. The youth of today fear the way that their own minds work because they don’t want anything put upon them for the way they identify. Bisexuals are harassed at a rate higher than those of a regular person, many stating that it was because the assaulter found that the orientation was ‘hot’ or ‘sexy’, and that if they were comfortable with both genders, they wouldn’t mind being forced into something. Bisexuals are often called w****s or s***s, because they just can’t choose whether they are, a heterosexual or a homosexual.
Being bisexual is never the choice for the person claiming bisexuality, it’s not a faulty decision between hetero and homo, and it can’t simply go away. Bisexuals can endure bigotry from both the straight and gay communities. Unlike with gays and lesbians, people often just sling out that bisexuals are simply experimenting with the other sex; that they are just too scared to fully come out of the closet and accepting their orientation. While there are a few cases that that does happen, many are actually just attracted to the two different sexes. According to Cornell University in New York, 15 to 20% of young females feel some form of the same sex sexual attraction, and 10 to 15% of young males feel attraction to their own sex.
There are so many people nowadays that feel that way, but yet according to PFLAG NYC, 26% of LGBT youth are kicked out of their homes because of their sexual identification, and up to 50% of the youth that live on the streets are LGBT, who were forced into those situations because of orientation. Those against bisexuality often complain that it causes issues with restrooms and locker rooms, that non-hetero-manics should be separated from the rest of the categorizations. Separation is a good thing in some areas, but life has gone on for a long time without the change, and separating LGBT from heterosexuals is demeaning to them. Just like how heterosexuals don’t necessarily find everyone attractive enough to pervasively stare at, non-heterosexuals don’t find everyone attractive enough to pervasively look at. In related topic, many of the ‘safer’ gender neutral bathrooms have been abused.
An ongoing argument is that older men and women will use the neutrality as an excuse to fake femininity or masculinity in order to fulfill malicious acts, making the gender neutral bathrooms and locker rooms a ground for the breeding of predators and trafficking. Like in the case where a Seattle man refused to leave a changing room where young girls were changing because the law stated he could be there and no one could call the police on him. Or when a Virginia man was caught videotaping two women and a small child changing, by false dressing and acting as a transgender. Bisexual- an adjective; meaning to note or relate to a person who is romantically or sexually attracted to both men and women, or to people of various gender identities. A simple word with a simple definition that causes so many problems in the world.
Bisexuals should not suffer the malevolence they get just because of orientation. It is not the choice of the person that they are bisexual or ‘different’; and they shouldn’t lose opportunities because of the way they’re classified. Article 27 Part I, “Everyone has the right freely to participate in the cultural life of the community, to enjoy the arts and to share in scientific advancement and its benefits.” Everyone has rights; Human Rights. Works Cited “Bisexuality.” Better Health.
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