The Indian Psychiatric Society (IPS) has declared homosexuality a “sexual variation” and not a “mental illness” in a new statement. This declaration comes at a time when the constitutional bench of the Supreme Court is in the process of hearing the review petition, challenging the ruling in the Suresh Kumar Koshal vs Naz Foundation case, which declared “unnatural sex” (any sex other than penile-vaginal) illegal.
“This is in line with the position of the American Psychiatric Association and the International Classification of Diseases of the World Health Organization which removed homosexuality from the list of psychiatric disorders in 1973 and 1992 respectively,” the IPS said in a statement.
This is the first time a psychiatric body has declared this in so many words in India, though way back in 1987, homosexuality was officially removed from the seminal international psychiatric handbook, The Diagnostic and Statistical Manual. This means that this was, in many ways, a long time coming.
On Tuesday, the Supreme Court began hearing a clutch of petitions asking for the removal of Section 377 — which says homosexuality is a crime — from the law books.
Section 377 had been struck down by the Delhi High Court in 2009. The court called it “unconstitutional”. But the judgement was set aside by the Supreme Court in 2013, which said the onus to change the law lay with Parliament.
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