🧣Health disparities faced by LGBTQIA+ people

There are no illnesses exclusive to LGBTQIA+ people. However, they face disproportionate health disparity compared to the general population due to institutional, cultural, and other barriers - criminalization, pathologization, and demonization.

For example, the Ministry of Health Malaysia acknowledges that access to HIV prevention services for gay, bisexual, queer (GBQ) men and other men who have sex with men (MSM) “have been poor probably because they are the most hard-to-reach and difficult to identify due to stigma and discrimination”. It also projects GBQ men and MSM to become the main key population in Malaysia affected by HIV in 2030 against the backdrop of increasing institutional, cultural, and other barriers. Evidence points to how decriminalization leads to reduced prevalence of HIV.

Pathologization

Pathologization refers to the psycho-medical, legal, and cultural practice of identifying a feature, an individual, or a population as intrinsically disordered.

LGBTQIA+ people are pathologized as a whole and as specific populations as having a mental disorder. In Malaysia, trans, intersex, and gender-diverse people are pathologized as having Gender Identity Disorder in medical guidelines despite the removal of the diagnosis from the DSM-IV in 2013. Asexual people are often pathologized and may face misdiagnoses or improper treatment in physical healthcare or have key parts of their identity ignored in therapy and mental health assessments.

Although health issues can be commonly identified among LGBTQIA+ people, and some health issues may be disproportionate to specific population groups, it is important to not pathologize the population and understand the social factors that contribute to their vulnerability to avoid stigmatization.