In fact, marriage has been identified by EU judges as a heteronormative notion that embeds ‘in itself’ stigma and discrimination against LGB people in countries where marriage is restricted to opposite-sex couples (see again Hay). Hence, measures such as pensions, special leaves, etc., aimed to support employees’ families, cannot be denied to LGB(T) employees only because they are not married (or cannot marry) (see Maruko, Römer, Hay). By the same token, employees’ civil status has been deemed irrelevant as the basis for distinctions between employees if it reflects sexual orientation discrimination. As a result, such statements have been held unlawful when used to de facto hamper (actual or presumed) gay people from being employed (see Accept). To mention one example, the Equality Framework Directive 2000/78, which prohibits a range of forms of discrimination in the field of employment, has been read and applied through an ‘anti-stereotyping approach’ by the Court of Justice of the EU (CJEU) and, consequently, throughout the Union.įor the first time, discrimination was detected in the case of public statements that reproduced popular clich és of homosexuality. Not only did the EU foster a cultural change in all member states, but it also introduced legal obligations that went far beyond their original scope. Whether or not this is entirely true, it has certainly been instrumental in pushing ahead the LGBTIQ+ agenda in EU member states, including the United Kingdom.įollowing the reform of the European Treaties in 1997, the EU was able to take concrete, although minimum, actions to improve LGBTIQ+ people’s lives. The EU has often been viewed as ‘the’ sexual minorities’ champion. What has the European Union ever done for us queers? This is particularly timely in the light of the recent UK Supreme Court decision in Walker v Innospec Limited, where the Court relied on European Union (EU) law to hold a provision of the Equality Act 2010 unlawful for violating pension rights of same-sex couples. There is certainly more than one ‘gay in the village’, so it is worth assessing Brexit in relation to the situation of LGBTIQ+ individuals. Although the possible impact of Brexit seems to have been scrutinised from most angles, there has been limited analysis of how it may affect LGBTIQ+ individuals. That feeling inevitably affected many individuals who identify as lesbian, gay, bisexual, trans, intersex, queer and other (LGBTIQ+). On 24 June 2016, many people had the feeling that they had gone to bed the night before in the United Kingdom and had woken up in Little Britain – a country prone to isolationism and protectionism, risking hurting its economic and social development for the sake of imperial nostalgia and moral panic about ‘loss of sovereignty’ and ‘mass migration’.
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