COMMENT | If work stress could really “turn” someone gay, then Malaysia’s most exhausted citizens, such as our single mothers who often juggle two or three jobs just to keep a roof over their children’s heads, would already be marching in Pride parades and waving rainbow flags.

But they are not. Why? It is because they are too busy surviving. Which is why a recent parliamentary reply linking work stress to LGBTQ+ behaviour did more than raise eyebrows: it turned Malaysia into a subject of international mockery.

This was not a careless aside or a joke taken out of context. It appeared in a written parliamentary reply by Minister in the Prime Minister’s Department (Religious Affairs) Zulkifli Hasan, responding to a question from Rantau Panjang MP Siti Zailah Yusoff.

Siti Zailah asked Parliament for the latest data and statistics on LGBTQ+ trends in Malaysia, including percentage breakdowns by age group and ethnicity, as well as the main contributing factors to any increase in cases.

Her question was...