The United States is often called “the land of the free” by privileged groups who live here. These groups do not face constant oppression due to their looks, race, sexuality, gender, or religion, and they are also responsible for making most of the laws. Unfortunately, those of us who do not fit into this group are oppressed by said laws. We are unable to do certain things, forbidden, and held down, be it economically or socially.
It’s a depressing reality, one that the UN called the States out on. Through a review released by the UN committee, the first in nine years, there was a focus on all the violations of the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights (ICCPR).
Of course, the U.S. has violated the human rights outlined in this treaty in many ways, especially regarding the lives of trans people. The normalization of discrimination against marginalized communities is concerning, and the fact that many lawmakers back up their decisions with religion is frightening. While freedom of religion is a right that the U.S. enjoys, freedom from religion is a bit more difficult to enjoy. Laws should not be passed because someone thinks that what someone else is doing violates a religion that the other person does not follow. Freedom of religion does not mean that human rights should be stripped away from anyone.
In the shadow report of the concerns, written by the University of Miami School of Law Human Rights Clinic Tamar Ezer, Nicholas Stelter, and Ryan Thoreson, it states, “While some positive steps have been made since the development of this Committee’s list of issues in 2019, discrimination against LGBTQ+ people, and particularly transgender people, in the U.S. remains widespread and has arguably worsened significantly.
“States have increasingly passed legislation limiting the rights of transgender individuals, with lawmakers bringing forth hundreds of bills in just the last year. The result is an environment where transgender people, particularly transgender children, encounter state-sponsored discrimination in many different areas of their lives, raising safety concerns.”
Perhaps this review will be the push that the United States needed to give back our rights.
