‘QUEERPHOBIA’ RAMPANT IN MED EDUCATION; NEED REVAMP, SAYS HC

The Madras high court on Tuesday came down heavily on conversion therapies employed by medical professionals to purportedly cure nonnormative gender and sexual identities of persons belonging to the Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Transgender and Queer (LGBTQ+) community and issued notice to the National Medical Commission and the Indian Psychiatric Society to submit reports before the next date of hearing on how the two medical bodies would help prevent this from happening.

The court also directed the police to amend its conduct rules to ensure that activists and other members of non-governmental organisations working with LGBTQ persons are also protected from police harassment.

Justice N Anand Venkatesh passed the order, made available on Wednesday, while hearing a writ petition filed by a same-sex couple seeking protection from harassment by the police and their families in March. In an unprecedented move, the judge had sought counselling on LGBT issues before passing a slew of orders on June 7.

Justice Venkatesh referred to a report filed by Dr Trinetra Haldar Gummaraju, a transwoman, and said “queerphobia” – prejudicial and abusive attitudes and behaviours directed at the LGBT community – was rampant in medical education.

Gummaraju’s report stated that the curriculum of undergraduate forensic medicine described “sodomy”, “lesbianism” and “oral sex” as sexual offences, and “transvestism” (cross-dressing) as a “sexual perversion”.

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