Oppressions due to Sexuality and Gender Identity

Name

Institution

Oppressions due to Sexuality and Gender Identity

Third World women in 2020 are facing numerous types of oppressions basically due to their gender identity and sexuality. Unfortunately, Gita Sen and Caren Grown in their 1987 book, Development, Crises and Alternative Visions fail to explore the concept of queer and trans women. Precisely, queer and trans women face more challenges compared with cisgender and heterosexual women in the 21st century due to the current unfavorable development policies that focus primarily on male and female persons (Lind & Share, 2003).

Violence among queer and trans women would probably be more rampant and fierce since they could encounter oppression and rejection from cisgender and heterosexual individuals. That is, male and female people could collaborate in the fight against the queer and trans women. Moreover, trans and queer women would face more cultural crisis because they could be treated as isolated persons who do not belong to the male or female groups. Consequently, the queer and trans women may feel devalued, disliked, unwanted and treated as outcasts by their communities for embracing “weird” cultures. Additionally, trans and queer women would likely encounter more economic and political crises since most of the development programs rely on biological conditions of targeted individuals. Queer and trans women would not acquire essential economic and political resources and jobs that are distributed based on gender. Subsequently, the trans and queer women would realize more debt and balance of payment crises because they would not secure adequate economic resources (Mohanty, Russo & Torres,1991). Also, queer and trans women would suffer substantially since they may not realize adequate attention on matters about reproductive healthcare and support of parents. Many development programs are aimed at addressing reproductive needs of male and female persons, thus leaving the other groups of persons in peril.

Accordingly, the factors discussed above matter immensely in influencing design and implementation of alternative development policies in Third World nations. It is essential that an individual’s freedom and liberty to select and embrace a given gender identity and sexuality should not attract adverse consequences on matters regarding development. Instead, every development strategy should endeavor to incorporate the needs and demands of every category of person, whether cisgender, heterosexual or not to effectively fight the issue of inequality, poverty and related vices in the society. If development policies fail to consider needs of the queer and trans women, development programs would not realize their developmental goals and objectives. Development policies should strive to drastically reduce inequalities in the society to encourage equal opportunities for every person. Additionally, incorporation of policies that favor development of queer and trans women would be a great move towards addressing the issue of gender-based discrimination while creating and executing development programs.

In conclusion, queer and trans women would probably encounter more rampant and fierce forms of economic, cultural, political, social and related crises because most of the existing development programs tend to focus on addressing issues facing the male and female persons. Specifically, the queer and trans women appear to be an isolated and unwanted portion of the community. Accordingly, new development policies should consider the otherwise marginalized group of women to facilitate reduction in the detrimental inequalities and poverty in the society. Still, a consideration of the needs of the queer and trans women during policy formulation would serve as a leeway toward abolition of the current gender-based development programs. Therefore, new and improved development policies should be developed to facilitate creation and implementation of more effective programs.

References

Lind, A., & Share, J. (2003). Queering development: Institutionalized heterosexuality in development theory, practice and politics in Latin America. Feminist Futures: Reimagining Women, Culture and Development.

Mohanty, C. T., Russo, A., & Torres, L. (Eds.). (1991). Third world women and the politics of feminism (Vol. 632). Indiana University Press.