Vietnam declares being gay or trans is ‘not an illness’ and cannot be cured or converted in landmark win for local equal rights activists
- The Ministry of Health announced it was outlawing conversion therapy
- The ministry said being LGBTQ+ was ‘not an illness’ and didn’t need to be cured
- Campaigners said the impact this will have on queer youth will be ‘very evident’
The Vietnamese government has declared being gay, bisexual or transgender is ‘not an illness’ and cannot be cured or converted in a ‘paradigm shift’ for LGBTQ+ rights in the country.
The Ministry of Health said it was outlawing conversion therapy and that medical professionals should treat those who are LGBTQ+ with respect and make sure they are not discriminated against.
The ministry said being LGBTQ+ was ‘entirely not a illness’ so there is no cure for it and that it does not need to be cured, in an announcement sent to provincial and municipal health departments nationwide before being posted to government websites on August 8.
The Vietnamese government has declared being gay, bisexual or transgender is ‘not an illness’ in a ‘paradigm shift’ for LGBTQ+ rights in the country (stock image of people at Hanoi Pride)
The announcement stated that Vietnam’s health minister had received information of ‘cures’ for homosexuality being offered in healthcare settings, The Guardian reported.
It also said that medics should not ‘interfere nor force’ LGBTQ+ people into treatment.
The breakthrough follows years of campaigning and ‘the impact on queer youth will be very, very evident.’
In a statement in April, Kidong Park, the WHO’s representative in Vietnam, confirmed that any attempt to change anyone’s sexual orientation lacked medical basis and was unacceptable.
Phong Vuong, the LGBTI rights program manager at The Institute for Studies of Society, Economy, and Environment (iSEE),said the announcement was ‘like a dream’.
‘It is something that we never thought would have happened, let alone coming from the most trusted source for medical information in Vietnam … I think the impact on queer youth will be very, very evident,’ Vuong told Al Jazeera.
Kyle Knight, a senior researcher of health and LGBTQ+ rights at Human Rights Watch, said it could not be overstated how ‘big a fix’ the announcement was.
He said that while attitudes wouldn’t change overnight, it marked a ‘huge paradigm shift’ and that the myth that homosexuality was diagnosable and could be cured was an underpinning factor in medical malpractice against LGBTQ+ youth.
Source: Read Full Article