Stop supporting LGBT 'conversion' programmes, rights groups tell govt
The government has been urged to stop supporting programmes and rhetoric that suggests LGBT people should be “rehabilitated” or “cured”, following the launch of a report today on anti-LGBT conversion practices, discrimination and violence in Malaysia.
The report, which was prepared by the Human Rights Watch (HRW) and Justice for Sisters, asserts that government officials have fostered a hostile climate for LGBT people, who face discrimination and punishment due to their sexual orientation or gender identity.
“Malaysia’s current rehabilitation and criminalisation approaches to LGBT people are based...
The government has been urged to stop supporting programmes and rhetoric that suggests LGBT people should be “rehabilitated” or “cured”, following the launch of a report today on anti-LGBT conversion practices, discrimination and violence in Malaysia.
The report, which was prepared by the Human Rights Watch (HRW) and Justice for Sisters, asserts that government officials have fostered a hostile climate for LGBT people, who face discrimination and punishment due to their sexual orientation or gender identity.
“Malaysia’s current rehabilitation and criminalisation approaches to LGBT people are based neither on rights nor evidence.
“The programmes, while framed as compassionate, internalise societal and structural discrimination and foment self-hatred among LGBT and gender diverse persons, and hostility among the rest of the population,” said Justice for Sisters co-founder Thilaga Sulathireh in a statement accompanying the report’s launch today.
The 71-page report is titled ‘I Don't Want to Change Myself: Anti-LGBT Conversion Practices, Discrimination and Violence in Malaysia’.
The report pointed to government-funded retreats known as mukhayyam that aim to “rehabilitate” LGBT people, which have been attended by at least 1,733 people as of June 2021.
The two groups said these programmes not only jeopardise the equality, dignity and rights of those who attend them but also send a dangerous message to the public that LGBT people can and should change their sexual orientation or gender identity.
The Malaysian government should stop sponsoring, funding and supporting conversion practices and instead should consult with LGBT community groups to educate public officials such as police and judges on gender, diversity, and human rights, the two groups said.
‘Regressing, hostile environment’
Aside from that, they said the government should also promptly repeal laws that discriminate on the basis of sexual orientation and gender identity.
Meanwhile, the groups said lawmakers should also decriminalise same-sex conduct and take other steps to prohibit discrimination based on sexual orientation and gender identity, allow transgender people to update their identity documents, and address bullying against LGBT students in schools.
For the report, HRW and Justice for Sisters interviewed 73 LGBT people in Malaysia between 2018 and 2021, along with journalists, human rights practitioners, lawyers and other stakeholders in order to examine how criminal penalties, conversion practices and anti-LGBT rhetoric from the government have undermined LGBT people’s basic rights
They reported that the LGBT interviewees said the environment in Malaysia was becoming increasingly hostile and regressing.
One interviewee said scapegoating transgender people and exploiting society’s homophobia and transphobia has become a convenient way for politicians to divert the public’s attention from more pressing issues.
The report also highlighted the high-profile case of transgender entrepreneur Nur Sajat Kamaruzzaman who failed to appear in court to answer to criminal charges for “insulting Islam” based on her attire.
A warrant was issued for her arrest and over 100 religious affairs officers were purportedly mobilised to hunt her down.
When Nur Sajat eventually resurfaced in Thailand, Malaysian authorities unsuccessfully sought her extradition. She has now settled in Australia.
“Nur Sajat’s case illustrates the extent to which authorities in Malaysia are willing to go to enforce the rigid and discriminatory gender norms by which they compel all Malaysians to abide by,” said HRW and Justice for Sisters.
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