PARLIAMENT | Those in the LGBT community should not be classified as suffering from a mental disorder, said Deputy Health Minister Dr Lee Boon Chye.

Instead, he described them as experiencing "hormonal and physical" issues in the brain which can be detected through magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) and other similar scans.

"About the LGBT community, not all of them have to do with mental illnesses.

"A large part of the LGBT community has organic illnesses, in terms of hormones or something physical in the brain which is shown through MRI scans and such, which causes them to act that way.

"It is not an illness but an aberration from what we usually see, so let us not treat those in the LGBT community as people who are sick or who suffer from mental illnesses. That is an inaccurate assumption," Lee said during the question-and-answer session in the Dewan Rakyat today.

He was responding to Ahmad Amzad Mohamed (PAS-Kuala Terengganu), who had asked whether those under the LGBT umbrella term would be classified as suffering from mental disorders.

LGBT issues cropped up recently after Minister in the Prime Minister's Department Mujahid Rawa Yusof spoke out against workplace discrimination for those in the LGBT community.

Though he stressed that LGBT activities are against the law in Malaysia, he had said that their rights as citizens are enshrined in the Federal Constitution.

The issue heated up when Mujahid ordered the portraits of LGBT activists Nisha Ayub and Pang Khee Teik to be removed from an arts festival in Penang.

The photography exhibition, held in conjunction with Merdeka month, is part of the ongoing George Town Festival 2018 that runs until September and is supposed to display the patriotism of prominent Malaysians.

Mujahid later said he ordered the removal of the portraits to prevent public backlash against the individuals.