LGBTQ+ Rights

Do you have any LGBTQ+ friends ? And if you do, do you think they have the same rights as you ? Nowadays there are many people in the LGBTQ+ community that are open about their sexuality, but often they are discriminated and marked for loving a person of their same sex or feeling different than other people, even if it is not hurting anyone. So these people tend to hide their sexuality for fear. But do you think this is right?

Actually, many people do not know the actual definition of LGBTQ+ and de terms that are included in de homosexual community. LGBTQ+ stands for lesbians, gays, transexual people, bisexuals, and gender queer people. But the second problem is that many people do not know what is queer people, this term stands for for every other gender apart from de biological genders such as male and female, there are many other like genders non-binary and genderfluid. And the plus stands for every other sexuality like pansexual, aromantic … 

Many people think LGBTQ+ people already have the same rights than heterosexual people but in reality this is not true. In 32 countries it is illegal to be homosexual and it can be punished  by death. Many of these people  suffer violence and inequality, not only in school but also in their houses which causes that the rates of suicide in LGBTQ+ youth has increased in a 60% in the last 45 years, because this people do not feel accepted or loved.

The trans law in Spain was approved in July of 2022. Transexual people were born in one gender that they do not feel comfortable in, so they decide to change to another. The trans umbrella not only includes people that change from male to female  or in reverse also other genders like non-binary, demi-girl, bigender … This law allows every trans person over 14 years to change their name and gender in their official documents like the DNI, with no need on years of hormones or medical procedures. Also prohibits the conversion therapies and fines it with over 10.001 euros. Many people didn’t want this law to be approved, but it was for trans people’s health and wellness.

Another touchy subject is the marriage of same sex couples and LGBTQ+ people. Cause many religious people believe that only a man and a woman can get married and that marriage is only for people that want biological kids. So in many countries it is illegal for same sex couples to marry. But gladly nowadays 2 out of 3 countries in the world permit LGBTQ+ marriage. The first one was the Netherlands back in 2000 , but Spain it is not too far behind as it was legalized in 2005. And today there are 33 countries in Europe that permit this marriage. And in Spain the trans law permitted woman, woman relationships to affiliate kids, this is a great step forward adoption in LGBTQ+ couples. There have been a lot of improvements in this subject yet we still have a long way to go.

There is very little representation of people in this community in the media. In books for example there is more representation. There are some very famous books that have characters that are homosexual. One of these books is Heartstopper, where the main character is Charlie that is gay and more characters are from LGTBQ+ community. The are a lot more books with homosexual characters such as The end of all August, The kill club, At the end both die, etc…

A book we have both read is the Song of Achilles. It is about the boyfriend of the Greek heroe Aquiles, who is called Patroclo. In the first part of the book, Patroclo is a kid who had been exiled and goes to the kingdom of Aquiles’ father and like that  meet. As they grow up, they become really good friends, but in the future they will become more than just that. The Trojan war started and Aquiles, Patroclo and Aquiles Army left. A few years later, Patroclo went to fight to save Aquiles’ honor. In that fight, Patroclo dies and Aquiles was devastated. He wanted to avenge his boyfriend’s death so he went to fight and killed the killer of Patroclo, who was called Hector. But there was a problem, Hector only could be killed by Aquiles, but if he died Aquiles would also die. The next day he wanted to fight and he was killed by Paris with the help of a god, Apollo. At the end, both were buried  together so they didn’t have to leave each other.

The curious thing is that in history they are great friends but this book (which at the end puts it is based on more ancient fonts than the Ilíada) they are boyfriends.

In conclusion, nowadays LGBTQ+ people are often accepted and loved but there will always be people that, due to lack of information or perhaps bad learning from their parents, disrespect the community, they make fun of them and even hurt them , just because they feel or love in a different way. And other people that tried to be included in the community that is trying to be respected, like zoophiles give a bad reputation to the community and it makes them not get respected. So we should spread awareness of this topic to everyone in the world. 

Wouldn’t you agree that LGBTQ+ people need respect?

Alba Llamas and Irene Rivas de Juan 4ºESO