Uganda debates whether gays are sick, mad or human beings 2

Gay - Human Rights, Health Politics, HIV • Tags: ,

I think it is in the Bible that the saying “ask and you shall receive” is to be found. Please don’t ask me what chapter or verse – I wouldn’t know if my life depended on it.

The reason I even attempted that verse is that I have asked and it seems as though I am beginning to receive.

I have asked (some might say, harangued or nagged, and they wouldn’t be terribly off base) that attention be paid to the Lesbian, Gay,Bisexual, Transgender, Intersexual (LGBTI) health situation so many times that I had began convincing myself, too, that I really was a broken record relic.

Well, it would appear that the  discussion about issues of public health (mental, STDs etc.) in the African LGBTI communities is starting to be seep into the public arena.  Check out Behind the Mask’s report on the debate about the mental health/status of LGBTI in Uganda.

Money quote:

“We are not allowed to discriminate any one as health workers. Even if you are a criminal in custody, we treat you with dignity,” Dr Mungherera said.

Dr Alexis Bisangwa, a senior psychiatric expert in Uganda also agreed with Mungherera saying, “It (homosexuality) is not there anymore,” he said referring to the DSM [Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders].

Drum roll please ….

We are not mad or mentally deranged simply by being gay! More pertinently, we must be treated as humanely as our straight counterparts in the provision of health services.

One should rightly wonder whether these venerable medical experts might be persuaded to send this information to Uganda’s entire cabinet and, especially Ethics and Integrity Minister, Simon Lokodo whose appreciation of the rights of gay men and women seems still stuck in 17th Century Catholic doctrinariasm.

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