A/HRC/38/43 B. Intersectionality 22. In its resolution 32/2, the Human Rights Council requested the mandate holder to address the multiple, intersecting and aggravated forms of violence and discrimination faced by persons based on their sexual orientation and gender identity. Such an analysis requires a multidimensional assessment of all the social factors combining to create an understanding of norms with regard to gender, sex and sexual attraction. In particular, this analytical process must take into account the fact that at the crux of what is considered the norm for sexual orientation or gender identity in a particular context are notions of the binary and non-binary, the male and the female, and the masculine and the feminine. 23. The mandate holder is therefore guided to an intersectional approach that remains aware of all conditions that create the substantively distinct life experience 7 of an individual. As one stakeholder stated to the mandate holder, “we hold many identities in one body”, and violent actions against a person will often result from intersecting factors that create a continuum of violence and a dynamic of disempowerment; 8 for example, a woman feeling profound emotional, affective and sexual attraction for other women may choose to self-identify as a lesbian or as bisexual, but will also relate to other equally relevant factors that shape who she is in the context in which she lives, such as race, ethnicity, religion or belief, health, status, age, class and caste, as well as migration or economic status.9 24. Intersectionality also describes the dynamic process of the lived experience, which occurs in space and time: for example, the mandate holder recognizes the needs of large numbers of ageing lesbian, gay, bisexual and trans or gender non-conforming persons, the asymmetries between the rural and the urban, and the largely unexplored intersections with disability, racism, xenophobia or the cycles of violence that motivate persons to flee their country. 25. The mandate exists at one of the points of intersection of these perspectives. Although the Independent Expert recognizes the complexity of these and other existential and political points of departure and the connected dynamics, he is persuaded that within the expansions and contractions of such a universe resides extraordinary energy and potential to bring about constructive change. V. Violence and discrimination based on sexual orientation and gender identity A. Overview 26. Violence and discrimination based on sexual orientation and gender identity exist in all corners of the world. Several comprehensive reviews have shown that lesbian, gay, bisexual, trans and gender non-conforming persons are at heightened risk of physical and sexual violence, 10 and that in most of those cases, sexual orientation or gender identity 7 8 9 10 6 Association for Women’s Rights in Development, “Intersectionality: A Tool for Gender and Economic Justice”, Women’s Rights and Economic Change, No. 9 August 2004, p. 2. See Division for the Advancement of Women, in collaboration with the Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights (OHCHR) and the United Nations Development Fund for Women, “Gender and racial discrimination”, report of the Expert Group Meeting, 21–24 November 2000, Zagreb. See also OHCHR and United Nations Entity for Gender Equality and the Empowerment of Women (UN-Women), Latin American Model Protocol for the investigation of gender-related killings of women (femicide/feminicide), 2014, pp. 43–45. General recommendation No. 28 (2010) of the Committee on the Elimination of Discrimination against Women. Kimberly H. McManama O’Brien, Richard T. Liu, Jennifer M. Putney, Taylor A. Burke and Laika D. Aguinaldo, “Suicide and self-injury in gender and sexual minority populations” in LGBT Health: Meeting the Needs of Gender and Sexual Minorities, K. Bryant Smalley, Jacob C. Warren, Nikki Barefoot, eds. (Springer Publishing Company, New York, 2017), pp. 181–198.