Vietnam’s Ministry of Health has asked doctors and caregivers not to discriminate against LGBT patients, whose sexual or gender orientation is “notnot a disease“, in a directive well received Tuesday, August 9 by the defenders of this community.
“Don’t treat homosexuality, bisexuality, or transgendering as a disease“Wrote the ministry, after reports from doctors claiming to be able to treat them. “Homosexuality cannot be “neat”does not need “to be cared for” and cannot be altered“, specified the document released last week, which called on the nursing staff to be “respectful“.
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Vietnam is considered relatively progressive on LGBT (lesbian, gay, bi, trans) issues, compared to some other countries in Asia, but misconceptions about sexual or gender orientation remain prevalent. In some schools across the country, teachers teach their students that homosexuality is a “mental illness“, lamented in 2020 the report of the human rights NGO Human Rights Watch. Young people from the LGBT community are sometimes taken by their parents to the hospital to be “cared forNguyen Thi Kim Dung, from the Support Center for Community Development Initiatives, an association involved in these issues, told AFP. Others have their medical appointments canceled or have to answer discriminating questions during them, she continued.
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This text is “official acknowledgment for the LGBT community that they have the right to go to health facilities and have the right to be treated the same“, she explained. If the ban on same-sex marriage was officially lifted in 2015, the law legally recognizing such a union is still pending. Just like a long-promised law legalizing gender reassignment.
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