STATE-BACKED anti-lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender (LGBT) conversion programmes, criminalisations and discriminations are violating the fundamental human rights of these people, a civil society group said. 

Thilaga Sulathireh, co-founder of Justice for Sisters, a local transgender-rights group, said such programmes and discrimination are impacting the lives of people, claiming that it even leads them becoming suicidal.

“People think that these laws (for LGBT people) in Malaysia do not any impact because they are not being used to harass people everyday but this report actually shows the criminalisation and the conversion practices as well as increasing anti-LGBT sentiments here and how it is impacting the lives of people,” Thilaga said after releasing a 71-page report titled “‘I Don’t Want to Change Myself’: Anti-LGBT Conversion Practices, Discrimination, and Violence in Malaysia.”

She said the report highlighted the overwhelming mental health impact on LGBT people, where some have had suicidal tendencies. 

“For us, as a human rights group, the criminalisation and conversion practices are inconsistent with human rights.”

“It violates fundamental rights of equality and non-discrimination, it violates our privacy, violates our bodily autonomy, and so many other rights,” she added. 

Justice for Sisters and Human Rights Watch co-published the report, in which they document how government officials have fostered a hostile climate affecting LGBT and gender diverse people, facing discrimination and punishment because of their sexual orientation or gender identity. 

The group interviewed 73 LGBT people in Malaysia between 2018 and 2021, including people living in Kuala Lumpur, Selangor, Negri Sembilan, Kelantan, Penang, Pahang, and Kedah, along with journalists, human rights practitioners, lawyers, and other informed sources.

Thilaga, who is an advocate of sexuality rights, said that based on the research, people vulnerable to the state-funded programmes are the Bottom-40 group (B40), LGBT people living with HIV/AIDS, school children and prisoners. 

“’Discrimination even takes place in schools, where some students who are perceived as queer or gender nonconforming are forced to undergo mandatory ‘counselling’ sessions,” she said. 

The report says that such camps are conducted by the Malaysian Islamic Development Department (Jakim) and state religious authorities.

According to the report, it said that Jakim in 2018 noted that 1,450 LGBT people had “recovered” from the “disease” through mukhayyam (conversion) since the programme was initiated in 2012.

By June 2021, the government reported that 1,733 LGBT people had attended these programmes.

Thilaga calls for such conversion practices to be ended, so that it would allow LGBT people to live their lives with dignity and get an opportunity to better understand themselves. 

She said that LGBT people also have the right to live their lives as others in the country. 

“If we look at international good practices, the state has an obligation to protect all people, including LGBT people.”

“When the government supports this sort of “conversion” activities, then what it implies is that LGBT people are not equals and that we do not have rights over our identities and our bodies.”

“It implies that the state has rights over our identities and our bodies,” the freelance researcher said. 

LGBT people targeted, disease weaponised 

The report states that since 2011, Jakim and state Islamic departments have organised a series of retreats for LGBT people, often for transgender women, with the stated objective of bringing them closer to Islam. 

The retreat (mukhayyam), are premised on the presumption that sexual and gender minorities are lacking in their understanding of Islam compared to the general population.

It also states that the programme manipulates LGBT people into believing that they are deviant. 

The Malaysian government has also sought to justify mukhayyam as an HIV prevention strategy and that it is part of Malaysia’s National Strategy Planning to End HIV/AIDS 2016-2030. 

Since there is an intersection between conversion practices in Malaysia with HIV/AIDS, Thilaga said the government was weaponising the disease. 

“The issue of HIV is weaponised. It is seen as a form of retribution for us who are seen as “sinners”. It is extremely inaccurate to say we are sinners.”

“The notion of sinning and retribution is quite engrained when we talk about LGBT people in Malaysia,” she said. 

Thilaga said that among the reasons people attend the mukhayyam programme is because they want to genuinely learn about religion. 

“LGBT people don’t have the opportunity to go to religious places, especially mosques to perform prayers or be part of communal activities.”

Another reason Thilaga said that the LGBT people are attending the programmes is because they want to access micro-credit funds. 

She said that the LGBT people want to alleviate themselves from the economic state they are presently in but are unable to do so due to the employment discrimination they face. 

Calling LGBT a cross-cutting issue, Thilaga said that issues of employment, economic assistance, healthcare and others should be addressed and absorbed by other ministries, instead of Jakim. 

Recommendation

Among the recommendations suggested by Justice for Sisters and Human Rights Watch to the government are to publicly affirm the equality and dignity of LGBT, intersex, and gender-diverse people in Malaysia.

They also condemned the conversion practices, discrimination, and violence that target them on the basis of sexual orientation or gender identity. 

The group also urged the government to repeal laws that discriminate on the basis of sexual orientation and gender identity.  

These included Sections 377A and 377B of the Penal Code, which criminalise “carnal intercourse against the order of nature,” and 377D that criminalises gross indecency.  

They called on the government to further review Section 377 of the Penal Code pertaining to “unnatural offences,” together with Sections 375 and 376 to develop a comprehensive law against sexual violence. 

It also asked that Parliament reject the proposed law increasing allowable Shariah criminal punishments under the Syariah Court (Criminal Jurisdiction) Act 1965, also known as Act 355. – August 11, 2022.