In a significant and welcome move, another layer of discrimination against the LGBTQIA+ community is being removed with the National Medical Commission (NMC) declaring conversion therapy a “professional misconduct” and empowering State Medical Councils to take disciplinary action if the guideline is breached. Members of the lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, queer, intersex, asexual or of any other orientation are often subjected to conversion or ‘reparative’ therapy, particularly when they are young, to change their sexual orientation or gender identity by force. The therapy can mean anything from psychiatric treatment, use of psychosomatic drugs, electroshock therapy, exorcism and violence. This can lead to trauma, manifesting in depression, anxiety, drug use, and even suicide. The American Academy of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry contends that the interventions offered in conversion therapy are provided under the “false premise that homosexuality and gender diverse identities are pathological”. The “absence of pathology” means there is no need for conversion or any other like intervention. To drive this point home, it is clear that an all-out effort will be required. In his landmark June 2021 judgment, Justice N. Anand Venkatesh of the Madras High Court had said pending adequate legislation, he was issuing guidelines for the police, social welfare ministries of the State and Centre, and the medical council for the protection of the community. The court sought updates from stakeholders every few months.
The NMC’s August 25 letter to State Medical Councils states that the Madras High Court had directed it to issue an official notification listing conversion therapy as a wrong, under the Indian Medical Council (Professional Conduct, Etiquette and Ethics) Regulations, 2002. If the Supreme Court’s decriminalising of homosexuality in 2018 by striking down Section 377 of the Indian Penal Code was a first step, the NMC’s notice is also a small move towards inclusivity. To make the LGBTQAI+ community feel safer, however, a lot more will have to be done. Taking the cue from countries such as Canada, which has banned conversion therapy, there should be clarity on what action will be taken against quacks, psychiatrists and doctors accused of offering reparative treatment and the punishment they will face. The groundwork has to be laid in education. Medical textbooks prescribed in 2018 still consider lesbianism a “perversion”, an act of “mental degenerates”. The change has to take place at a societal level, and complemented by laws better tuned to the needs of a diverse community than the Transgender Persons (Protection of Rights) Act, 2019, has sought to do. To that effect, Indian institutions and society have a long road ahead. First, they will have to acknowledge the “variability of human beings” and accord equal respect to every one, whatever the sexual orientation or gender identity.
