In a “paradigm shift” for LGBTQ+ rights in the nation, the Vietnamese government has proclaimed that being gay, bisexual, or transgender is “not a disease” and cannot be healed or converted.
Conversion therapy is now illegal, according to the Ministry of Health, and medical personnel should treat LGBTQ+ people with respect and ensure that they are not subjected to discrimination.
In a message sent to provincial and municipal health departments around the country before it was published on official websites on August 8, the ministry said that being LGBTQ+ was “absolutely not a sickness,” meaning that there is no treatment for it and that it does not need to be healed.
In what has been referred to as a “paradigm shift” for LGBTQ+ rights in the nation, the Vietnamese government has proclaimed being gay, bisexual, or transgender is “not a sickness” (stock image of people at Hanoi Pride)
According to The Guardian, the statement claimed that Vietnam’s health minister had learned of “cures” for homosexuality being provided in medical settings.
Additionally, it said that doctors should neither “interfere nor coerce” LGBTQ+ individuals into seeking therapy.
After years of advocacy, a breakthrough has been made, and “the effect on LGBT adolescents will be very, very visible.”
The WHO’s representative in Vietnam, Kidong Park, said in an April statement that any effort to alter someone’s sexual orientation lacked a medical foundation and was inappropriate.
The news, according to Phong Vuong, manager of the LGBTI rights program at The Institute for Studies of Society, Economy, and Environment (iSEE), was “like a dream.”
Kidong Park, the WHO’s representative in Vietnam, said in a statement in April that any effort to alter someone’s sexual orientation lacked a medical foundation and was inappropriate (stock image of I Do festival in Hanoi)
We never expected that to happen, much less come from Vietnam’s most reputable source of medical knowledge. According to Vuong, the effects on gay kids would be “extremely, very visible.”
The ‘huge a fix’ of the revelation, according to Kyle Knight, senior researcher of health and LGBTQ+ rights at Human Rights Watch, cannot be understated.
Although views would not change overnight, he said that there had been a “big paradigm shift” and that the notion that homosexuality could be diagnosed and treated was a major cause of medical malpractice against LGBTQ+ children and adolescents.