Creating a congenial environment for LGBTIQAP+ persons to provide and access affirmative healthcare is mandatory and among their fundamental human rights.
Published Apr 07, 2025 | 1:00 PM ⚊ Updated Apr 07, 2025 | 1:50 PM
Conversion therapy/Reparative therapy is harmful for LGBTQIAP+ communities.
Synopsis: “Conversion therapy” is a misnomer as it is usually attempted under compulsion and can never be therapeutic but can adversely affect the recipient. However, over the last eight years, many adult LGBTQIAP+ people from “educated” families based in urban areas across India have disclosed anonymously that they are taken to psychologists and psychiatrists from “reputed” healthcare institutions for counselling, to “remain” in their gender assigned at birth and presumed sexual orientation.
“You won’t find correct, clear, and complete information about people like me in your medical literature or information resources meant for healthcare providers/professionals (HCPs). Even if information about us exists, HCPs must understand our lives, challenges, and needs from us, directly. This will ensure that HCPs do not pathologise us,” Senthil (name changed), a transmasculine person (sometimes called a transgender man or trans man) told an epidemiologist and a few post-graduate medical students, in Tamil — his preferred language — sometimes ago.
This epidemiologist who knows Tamil has over 35 years of teaching, research, and consultation experience at reputed healthcare institutions and community health research organisations in Bengaluru but was willing to learn about trans and intersex from community members themselves.
Similarly, a few queer-trans-intersex affirmative psychiatrists, endocrinologists, paediatricians, surgeons, and nurses have admitted in various forums that there is minimal information about LGBTQIAP+ persons in their academic curriculum and they must “unlearn” and “relearn” about their physical, physiological, and psychosocial realities from them.
The above HCPs are among the small number of physicians, nurses, psychologists, surgeons et al in India who are open to understanding the health issues and care needs of LGBTQIAP+ persons, directly from them, in the language that is familiar to them, rather than from sources which might be obsolete, biased, insufficient or wrong.
This approach is vital and must be the norm because even now, many HCPs consider that being an LGBTQIAP+ person is a disease, disorder, defect, or dysfunction. Actually, at various discussions on the health and care needs of LGBTQIAP+ persons, physicians and surgeons from across India reiterate that they can treat something only if it is a disorder.
Even when community members present, highlight that the HCPs’ views are disrespectful and pathological, many HCPs ignore the latter and prefer to practice their profession with their baseless biases.
Hearteningly, a February 2025 Madras High Court order states that LGBTIQA+ persons must be in HCP orientation teams on their life experiences and requirements.
“Based on the title it seems a step in the right direction and should be the default and not need a court judgment to implement,” said Nandhini, a trans woman from southern Tamil Nadu about this nuanced verdict.
Fred Rogers, a trans and queer affirmative counsellor by profession and a transgender rights activist working for the inclusion of assigned females at birth and gender-diverse communities, added, ”I am so glad that the Madras High Court, especially Justice N Anand Venkatesh understands how much we as communities can contribute towards sensitisation of everybody including healthcare providers. I appreciate this judge’s order and his understanding of how real-life experience and lived realities matter a lot to sensitise people, including HCPs”.
The above affirmative high court order also revisited the crucial issue of “conversion therapy” that has been haunting LGBTQIAP+ persons for a long. Importantly, the Indian Psychiatric Society position statement (2018) and the Indian Association of Clinical Psychologists (IACP) position statement (2020) are affirmative towards LGBTQIAP+ persons.
Further, the National Medical Commission (NMC) released a circular (2022) terming “conversion therapy” as professional misconduct, following a Madras High Court directive (2022) on this life-threatening matter.
In fact, “conversion therapy” is a misnomer as it is usually attempted under compulsion and can never be therapeutic but can adversely affect the recipient. However, over the last eight years, many adult LGBTQIAP+ persons from “educated” families based in urban areas across India have disclosed anonymously that they are taken to psychologists and psychiatrists from “reputed” healthcare institutions for counselling, to “remain” in their gender assigned at birth
and presumed sexual orientation.
This is considered “coercive counselling” and also constitutes “conversion therapy” which must be corrected in the MBBS curriculum as per a Madras High Court order (October 2021).
“My parents tried to induce masculinity in me through hormone (testosterone) shots with the help of an experienced endocrinologist. But, that was unsurprisingly counterproductive as it increased my anxiety and body mass,” said Lainie (name changed), an adolescent queer person in Karnataka.
Lainie was also tortured in other ways when they were exploring their gender and sexuality that differed from their gender assigned at birth. Additionally, they were shown photos of the “opposite” gender, and their psychosomatic responses were monitored to determine if they experienced heterosexual attraction or not.
“Conversion therapy/Reparative therapy is so harmful for LGBTQIAP+ communities. The judge took the initiative to understand this issue deeply and has ordered the NMC to declare conversion therapy as professional misconduct. Despite orders, it is saddening to share various forms of conversion therapy continue” remarked Rogers.
Considering the above distressing situations, seeking a complete ban on “conversion therapy” through the likes of the Conversion Therapy (Prohibition) Bill, 2022, including punishment and penalties, is perhaps necessary.
Of course, creating a congenial environment for LGBTQIAP+ persons to provide and access affirmative healthcare is mandatory and among their fundamental human rights.
(Ritash is a writer, LGBTQIAP+ peer counsellor, and co-founder of the RANG Foundation. Views expressed are personal. Edited by Majnu Babu).
