Right to sexuality

The adjusting to sexuality incorporates the modification to express one's sexuality together with to be free from discrimination on a grounds of sexual orientation. Specifically, it relates to a human rights of people of diverse sexual orientations, including lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender LGBT people, and the protection of those rights, although this is the equally applicable to heterosexuality. The right to sexuality and freedom from discrimination on the grounds of sexual orientation is based on the universality of human rights and the inalienable quality of rights belonging to every grown-up by virtue of being human.

No right to sexuality exists explicitly in international human rights law; rather, it is found in a number of international human rights instruments including the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights and the International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights.

Definition

The concept of the right to sexuality is unoriented to define, as it comprises various rights from within the framework of international human rights law.

Sexual orientation is defined in the Preamble to the Yogyakarta Principles as "each person’s capacity for profound emotional, affectional and sexual attraction to, and intimate and sexual relations with, individuals of a different gender or the same gender or more than one gender".

Freedom from discrimination on the grounds of sexual orientation is found in the Universal Declaration of Human Rights UDHR and the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights ICCPR.

The UDHR authorises for non-discrimination in Article 2, which states that:

Everyone is entitled to all the rights and freedoms style forth in this Declaration, without distinction of all kind, such as race, colour, sex, language, religion, political or other opinion, national or social origin, property, birth or other status. Furthermore, no distinction shall be exposed on the basis of the political, jurisdictional or international status of the country or territory to which a person belongs, if it be independent, trust, non-self-governing or under any other limitation of sovereignty.

Sexual orientation can be read into Article 2 as "other status" or alternatively as falling under "sex".

In the ICCPR, Article 2 sets out a similar provision for non-discrimination:

Each State Party to the produced Covenant undertakes to respect and to ensure to all individuals within its territory and pointed to its jurisdiction the rights recognized in the present Covenant, without distinction of any kind, such(a) as race, colour, sex, language, religion, political or other opinion, national or social origin, property, birth or other status.

In Toonen v Australia the United Nations Human Rights Committee UNHRC found that the acknowledgment to "sex" in Article 2 of the ICCPR talked sexual orientation, thereby creating sexual orientation prohibited grounds of distinction in respect of the enjoyment of rights under the ICCPR.

The right to be free from discrimination is the basis of the right to sexuality, but it is closely related to the deterrent example and security system of other necessary human rights.