The Health Minister in Vietnam has officially declared that homosexuality is “not a disease” following lobbying by LGBTQ+ activist groups.

An official announcement was issued to all provincial and municipal health departments after the Minister claimed to have received information about some healthcare providers offering “cures” for homosexuality.

Speaking to Al Jazeera, Phong Vuong, the LGBTI rights program manager at The Institute for Studies of Society, Economy, and Environment (iSEE) said, “This announcement that being LGBT is not a disease and condemning the practice of conversion therapy, this is like a dream”.

He continued, “It is something that we never thought would have happened, let alone coming from the most trusted source for medical information in Vietnam. I think the impact on queer youth will be very, very evident.”

Taking into consideration the World Health Organisation’s (WHO) removal of homosexuality and being transgender from the International Classification of Diseases, the directive outlined five primary guidelines in order to apply protections to the LGBTQ+ community from harmful practices.

Socialist Vietnam ?? has taken new steps to protect LGBTQ ?️‍? ppl from discrimination, directly telling doctors “Do not consider homosexuality, bisexuality or being transgender a disease."

It's already illegal to discriminate, but education abt shedding the old values has lagged. pic.twitter.com/BpNHgkHUKv

— Morgan Artyukhina, Jew for a Free Palestine✡️?? (@LavenderNRed) August 16, 2022

The guidelines suggest that all medical providers should receive strengthened education around “lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender people”. It also instructs that LGBTQ+ people should be treated equally and their sexual or gender identity should not be treated as a disease. Any involuntary interventions should be prohibited and all mental health services must only be conducted by professionally trained experts in dealing with sexual orientation and gender identity. 

Additionally, the guidelines state that there should be increased supervision and inspection of medical facilities involved in treating LGBTQ+ people.

Vuong explained, “This is important in the way that it affirms that being LGBT is not something you can fix. When a queer child gets taken to a medical facility … if they know about this, it can be used to defend themselves.”

Great to see the Health Ministry in #Vietnam taking positive steps by no longer classifying homosexuality as an illness and also by calling for a ban on conversion therapy.https://t.co/NO0EZ4oKs9

— Ibtisam Ahmed (he/him) (@Ibzor) August 24, 2022

The announcement comes following months of intensive lobbying by iSEE, calling on the World Health Organisation in Vietnam to demedicalise homosexuality. 

As well as petitioning WHO Vietnam to officially affirm their stance, the group devised an innovative campaign called ‘Leave with Pride’. 

For the ‘Leave with Pride’ campaign, iSEE worked with collaborators to create a video campaign posing the question: if being queer is a disease shouldn’t LGBTQ+ people be able to apply for sick leave?

Whilst the announcement by the Vietnam Health Minister is being hailed as a landmark step towards achieving equality for the country’s LGBTQ+ community, it is still uncertain whether the directive will actually allow for any legal action to be taken to implement the changes.