Thiruvananthapuram: Medical practitioners and activists are asking for the inclusion of Sexual Orientation and Gender Identity (SOGI) concerns in medical training programmes and education programmes, as gaps remain wide open.
Sample this piece on lesbianism from ‘The Essentials of Forensic Medicine & Toxicology’ written by K.S. Narayan Reddy and O.P. Murty. “The practice is usually indulged in by women who are mental degenerates or those who suffer from nymphomania (excessive sexual desire).” It goes on to say, “Lesbians who are morbidly jealous of one another, when rejected, may commit homicide, suicide or both.”
The book has gone into 32 editions. This is a standard textbook for MBBS students, not just in Kerala, but many other states, according to L. Ramakrishnan, vice-president, SAATHI, a Chennai-based organisation which has been working on issues of gender and sexual minorities. “There is need for healthcare to be inclusive. One area in which it can be made inclusive is by looking at gaps as well as misrepresentations in the medical education curriculum,” he says.
Without enough doctors sensitive to their issues, people from sexual and gender minority communities even hesitate to consult a doctor. In fact, a senior psychology faculty member at a Government Medical College Hospital advised a homosexual person to get married to a woman, “as women only need companionship.”
This unfortunately is not an anomaly, according to an LGBT ally who prefers to be unnamed. “Parents of LGBT people who come out usually consult a psychologist or a psychiatrist. Most often, these professionals peg it as a disorder, or a behavioural issue,” says the ally.
Kerala-based LGBTIQ organisation Queerala with the support of SAATHI has initiated a project which aims at LGBTIQ inclusive healthcare, education as well as laws called ‘Project Vistaara’. Queerala founder Jijo Kuriakose says, “We are now trying to identify gaps in MBBS and MD textbooks and suggest amendments. For example, words like ‘sodomy,’ ‘sexual deviance’ and ‘unnatural sex’ are used in many places. These need to be corrected. Moreover, wherever gender is mentioned, the concept of gender spectrum, which covers gender identities outside the gender binary of male and female needs to be used.”
An example to fall back on would be Maharashtra University of Health Sciences, Nashik, which updated its curriculum for medical students which is more inclusive of SOGI issues. SCTIMST faculty member Sundari Ravindran who was part of the team which updated the curriculum, says, “WHO stopped calling homosexuality a psychological morbidity around two decades ago. But many of our doctors continue to refer to it as a disorder. We need to fix the gap in medical education.”
