Social Exclusion and the Stigmatization of Lesbians

Abstract

Within Human Rights as a whole there are included Sexual Rights. These refer, among other matters to sexual diversity, identity and freedom, and the principles of non-discrimination. The fact that rights of this nature appear in such a context is proof enough that there is a need to protect individuals in certain situations where their human rights are violated. This is to avoid the exclusion that can be a consequence of belonging to the lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender (LGBT) group, and in particular, as discussed in this paper, to the category “lesbian”. A society may have as its only form of division a binary separation (either a man or a woman) and standards indicating heterosexuality as the sole natural and normal behaviour. In this case, everything that fails to fit into this binary division and conform to heterosexuality will be labelled with terms such as “unnatural”, “abnormal”, “pathological” , “undesirable”, or the like. People are not aware that the fundamental aim is total and absolute social control in accordance with values that are created culturally and imposed generation after generation. It is also to punish anybody who tries to live outside the bounds that are set. It is from this attempt at control that stereotypes arise which can be used to assign false profiles and to stigmatize certain behaviours. These consequently lead to many varieties of exclusion.