Social Work with People Practicing Same-Sex ... - ILGA Europe

1 Лекторский В. О толерантности,
плюрализме и критицизме //
Философия, наука, цивилизация.
— М., 1999.
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beliefs and ideologies of patriarchal society, for example “Lord created a woman as
made for a man for him to continue his family”. Sexism promotes “natural destination”
of men and women: it reduces a women to the sexual object or thing without rights and
no obligations regarding her; it reduces a man to the role of economic adjunct of the
family; it reduces a women to the role of childbirth machine and/or kitchen machine; it
reduces the man to the role of aggressive ape-militarist. It also supports beliefs that a
woman, in contrast to a man, does not have a right to treason; that only a man can reach
orgasm during sex, while a woman should remain passive participant; that punitive
measures (e.g. for crimes) that are applied against men, cannot be applied against
women; that it is prohibited for a man/woman to take certain professions, because he/
she is a man/woman, and so on.
Sexual minorities is the term that does not convey any offensive or negative
connotations; it is used in legal documents as collective name for various groups,
including homosexuals, bisexuals and lesbians. From the UN point of view, “minority”
defines the category of population, which requires a special attention of the state in
terms of protection of human rights or improvement of the quality of life.
Sexual identity means person's own attribution to a certain group of people on the
basis of various characteristics, including biological sex, sexual orientation, gender
identity (psychological belonging to a specific social gender, which does not necessarily
coincide with biological sex), social gender role (individual's behaviour in the society,
that complies with cultural norms and stereotypes assigning “typical masculine” or
“typical feminine” behaviour). Modern sexology identifies three possible types of
sexual identity: homosexual, heterosexual and bisexual identities.
Sexual orientation is a pattern of emotional, romantic, sexual or erotic (sensual)
attraction of an individual towards other individuals of specific sex. The notion of
sexual orientation is different from sexual identity. Sexual orientation refers to “real
identity” of the person, that is, to his/her thoughts, desires, feelings and emotions;
Sexual identity describes how the person identifies his/her sexuality, and his/her selfdetermination.
For example, one may consider himself as heterosexual person, but have
regular sexual contacts with people of the same sex. Modern sexology identifies three
types of sexual orientation:
• heterosexual orientation means attraction and disposition exclusively towards
individuals of the opposite (heterosexuals);
• homosexual orientation means attraction and disposition exclusively towards
individuals of the same sex (lesbians);
• bisexual orientation means attraction and disposition towards individuals of both
opposite and same sex, not necessarily equally and simultaneously (bisexuals).
STI — sexually transmitted infection. Sometimes outdated term — STD (sexually
transmitted disease) is used.
Stigma stands for label, mark. In modern world it means strong social labelling. In
this regard stigmatization is association of certain quality (primarily negative) with a
specific individual or a group of individuals, even though such relation is either absent
or alleged. Stigmatization is the part of many stereotypes, especially the malicious
ones. Very often stigma leads to discrimination — that is, from persuasions to actions
(direct violation of rights).
Tolerance. According to definition, given by Declaration of Principles on Tolerance
(proclaimed and signed by 185 Member States of UNESCO, including Ukraine, on
November 16, 1995), tolerance means “respect, acceptance and appreciation of the rich
diversity of our world's cultures, our forms of expression and ways of being human”.
However, Academician Vladislav Lektorsky 1 , expert in the area of epistemology and
philosophy of science, offers four possible interpretations of tolerance.
1. “Tolerance as indifference” assumes the existence of opinions, the validity of
which can never be proved (e.g., religious beliefs, specific cultural values, peculiar
ethnical viewpoints and persuasions, end so on).