Statement by the Allied Rainbow Communities International
Delivered by Arvind Narrain
Mr. President,
The Report of the Special Rapporteur draws attention to the fact that reform in the criminal code has left untouched the penalization of all forms of intimacy between people of the same sex. The Report also notes the serious and systematic violation of the rights of women through a web of legislations which seek to keep women in a subordinate position.
Expression of intimacy between two men as well as between two women are severely punishable with the ultimate punishment being the death penalty. Transgender persons who wish to get identity papers in the gender of their choice have no option but to alter their bodies through hormones and surgery and become permanently and irreversibly infertile.
We submit that there is a connection between the legislations which keep in place the subordination of women and the legislations which target and control LGBT expression.
Both series of legislations seek to keep in place a binary gender system, where what it to be a man and what it is to be a woman is sought to be controlled by law. LGBT people who do not conform to culturally approved models of femininity and masculinity can be subject to persecution, arbitrary arrest and detention. Similarly within this rigid system any attempt by women to break out their legally enforced subordination and assert their equal rights within marriage is punished. [1]
Mr President,
Iran must repeal the slew of laws which seek to imprison sexual and gender diversity within the iron cage of a man made artificially imposed binary two gender system.
Accepting the norm of equality of all people regardless of their gender, sexual orientation, gender identity or gender expression would be in conformity with the promise of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights which is a bedrock principle of human rights by which all nations are bound.
Thank you Mr President.
[1]Justice For Iran and 6Rang, Diagnosing Identities, Wounding Bodies : Medical abuses and other Human Rights Violations Against Lesbian, Gay and Transgender People in Iran, 2014. j