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print versionEditorial, The Times of India, October 15, 2021
The medical profession has a worldwide history of treating homosexuality as an illness, which in turn has played a significant role in the stigmatisation of non-hetrosexual identities. Recent decades have thankfully begun to see a better-informed consensus emerge, thanks to both activisms and attention to scientific evidence. But in India, as the Madras high court said last month, queerphobia continues to be rampant in medical education.
Now the National Medical Commission has done right to issue an advisory to all medical universities and colleges to stop teaching in ways that are “derogatory/discriminatory/insulting to LGBTQIA+ community”. Curricula that describe lesbians as “mental degenerates” or transvestism as a “sexual perversion” go hand in hand with “conversion therapy” and other medical practices that still try to alter various sexual orientations instead of recognising them as a normal variant of human sexuality. Such treatments have been discredited in many parts of the world as both unethical and risky, with the American Psychiatric Association for example saying that they can cause depression and self-destructive behaviour.
The NMC advisory will not change things overnight. Strong institutional follow-through will need monitoring, nudging and more. Consider how the degrading “two-finger” or virginity test to ascertain rape has continued to be taught in forensic syllabi long after being banned by the Supreme Court. But change must happen. Indian medical institutions must unlearn their queerphobia.
