On Monday, February 23, U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry appointed Randy Berry as the first ever Special Envoy for the Human Rights of Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, and Transgender (LGBT) Persons worldwide.
Amnesty International joined other rights groups last summer to lobby the White House for this Special Envoy to show the United States’ commitment to LGBT human rights at home and abroad. With this position, the U.S. is strengthening its commitment to the safety and freedom of LGBT people around the world. It’s a welcome, positive step for human rights.
In a press statement released Monday, Secretary Kerry noted that “Defending and promoting the human rights of LGBT persons is at the core of our commitment to advancing human rights globally– the heart and conscience of our diplomacy.”
What makes this position important is not only its historic nature but the signal it sends about LGBT rights: LGBT rights are human rights.
Every day around the globe, LGBT people are not only defending their lives and very existence, often targeted simply because of their identity, brutalized by acts of degradation and violence. As we’ve seen with Ellen Klimova’s imprisonment in Russia and Uganda’s homophobic laws, across the globe, LGBT people face discrimination, violence, imprisonment, torture, or even execution. Such discrimination flies in the face of international human rights laws, but all too often, “LGBT issues” are not considered “human rights issues,” or are even disregarded all together.
The right to live free from violence, the right to security of person, the right to freedom of expression, the right to physical and mental integrity, the right to live free from discrimination the right to equal access under the law—these are central tenets in human rights, and they are routinely denied to LGBT people simply because of their identity.
LGBT rights are central to effective human rights policy and advocacy—and discrimination against LGBT people is an affront to everyone’s rights. We congratulate Mr. Berry on his new role. Now it is time for him to put words into action.