National State and Identity Politics

In the modern era, nationality has been a key identity in international relations, and the marriage of “country” and “state” created a powerful polity – the national state – that dominated global politics. The causes that “pushed” and “pulled” nations and states together are investigated in this article, as well as the variables that contribute to violent identity politics. While there has been an increase in the separation of “nation” and “state” in recent decades, it is argued that the likelihood of identity conflicts being expressed violently is dependent on both the character of the state (the timing of state institutionalisation relative to the construction of national consciousness, the democratic or non-democratic nature of the state, and the national or non-national basis for the state) and the likelihood of identity conflicts being expressed violently.

LGBT Issues

Because of who they love, how they appear, or who they are, people all around the world are subjected to violence and inequity, as well as torture and even execution. Orientation of sex and identity related to gender are inborn and  important components of our identities that should never be discriminated against or abused. Human Rights Watch advocates for the rights of lesbians, gays, bisexuals, and transgender individuals, as well as activists representing a wide range of identities and causes. Many violence are committed against the community like torture, killings, and executions based on sexual orientation and gender identity are documented and exposed over the world.

1. Violence

When compared to heterosexual cisgender people, lesbian, gay, and transgender people, especially those of colour, face disproportionately high rates of violence. According to the FBI, bias against sexual orientation and gender identity was the second most common single-bias category behind race, accounting for more than 21% of hate crimes reported in 2013. Furthermore, according to the National Coalition of Anti-Violence Programs, while transgender survivors and victims accounted for only 19 percent of anti-LGBT violence recorded to the organisation, transgender women of colour accounted for 50% of homicide victims.

2. Discrimination in the workplace

According to a 2013 Pew Research Center survey, 21% of LGBT adults felt their employer treated them unfairly because of their sexual orientation or gender identity. Another study by the National Black Justice Coalition and other organisations indicated that nearly half of black LGBT people have seen workplace discrimination. According to a national poll, 90 percent of trans persons have reported on-the-job harassment or maltreatment, and 47 percent had been fired, not recruited, or denied a promotion because of their gender identification.

3.poverty-

Anti-LGBT discrimination has been shown to have negative economic consequences for LGBT workers, resulting in high rates of unemployment, homelessness, poor health, and food insecurity. In comparison to the overall population, LGBT workers are more likely to earn less per year, according to Pew. Trans respondents are nearly four times more likely than the average American to earn less than $10,000 per year, according to the transgender discrimination survey. According to a 2009 Williams Institute analysis, same-sex couples are two times more likely to be poor than heterosexual couples, and lone LGB persons are 1.2 times as likely to be poor than straight adults.

4. Health-care services

Health disparities for the LGBT population are exacerbated by social and systemic discrimination, as well as limited access to health care. According to the Fenway Institute, LGBT persons are more likely than straight people to have unmet health needs, as well as problems accessing care and obtaining insurance, resulting in greater rates of disease, chronic illness, drug use, mental illness, and obesity in the general community. The transgender community is particularly affected by these inequities. The Transgender Law Center discovered that gender identity discrimination in insurance, denial of insurance coverage, and transgender-related health care exclusions prevent transgender and gender non-conforming people from getting medically necessary care like mental health services, surgery, and hormone therapy in the private market.

Critiques and criticism of identity politics-

Critics claim that, similar to the history of divide and rule techniques, organisations founded on a shared identity (e.g. race or gender identity) can distract energy and attention away from more basic issues. In response to the Combahee River Collective’s assertions that greater social change required the organisation of women around intersectional identities, socialist and radical feminists argued that activism would instead necessitate support for more “basic” kinds of oppression. [9] Other feminists agreed, meaning that a politics of causes should take precedence over a politics of identity. Tarrow also claims that identity politics can result in insular, sectarian, and divided movements incapable of growing their membership, widening their appeals, or negotiating with potential allies.

Tarrow also claims that identity politics can result in insular, sectarian, and divided movements incapable of growing their membership, widening their appeals, or negotiating with potential allies. Separate organisation, in other words, undermines movement identification, diverts activists’ attention away from critical issues, and prevents the development of a single goal.

Right-wing critics of identity politics consider it as fundamentally collectivist and discriminatory, in direct opposition to classical liberalism’s objectivst. Those on the left who criticise identity politics see it as a form of bourgeois nationalism, i.e., a divide-and-conquer strategy by the ruling classes to divide people by nationality, race, ethnicity, religion, and other factors in order to divert workers’ attention away from the class struggle.

Intersectional critics

Kimberlé Crenshaw describes identity politics as a process that binds people together based on a shared component of their identity in her journal article Mapping the Margins: Intersectionality, Identity Politics, and Violence Against Women of Color. Identity politics, according to Crenshaw, have brought African Americans (and other non-white people), gays and lesbians, and other oppressed communities together in community and progress. She criticises it, though, because “intergroup distinctions are typically conflated or ignored.” Crenshaw claims that at least two components of Black women’s identities are oppressed: their race and their sexuality. As a result, while identity politics are useful, we must be conscious of intersectionality’s role. In Intersectionality and Feminist Politics, Nira Yuval-Davis backs up Crenshaw’s criticisms, explaining that “Identities are fluid.”

In Mapping the Margins, Crenshaw uses the Clarence Thomas/Anita Hill issue to illustrate her point. Anita Hill has accused Clarence Thomas, a nominee for the United States Supreme Court, of sexual harassment. Thomas would be the Supreme Court’s second African American judge. Hill, according to Crenshaw, was labelled anti-Black in the anti-racism movement, and despite coming forth on the feminist issue of sexual harassment, she was shut out since feminism is dominated by the narrative of white middle-class women. When groups coalesce on the basis of identity politics, Crenshaw concludes that acknowledging overlapping categories is preferable than ignoring categories entirely.

Conclusion-

In this article we have come across various identity politics and their effects on our society. We have seen about LGBT community and the discrimination faced by them in every field of their life. In this article we have dealt with various issues faced by them ,their struggle and some of their achievements which will even take time for implications in today’s society. We have dealt with various critiques and criticism of identity politics and intersectional critiques associated with that.