Sickening right? Hopefully the clubs will reopen soon so we can catch them live.

u mean they perform live ?? where isit ??

They do... I have a drag queen friend who has a frequent gig at a local gay-friendly club but sadly I haven't got the chance to check them out yet.

i see interesting

🇲🇾 “We can not help”, Individual Cancels Donating Groceries After Shelter Refuse Their Request to Take Photos
Source: https://worldofbuzz.com/grocery-donors-pull...ect-identities/



Donations can be a tricky thing, especially during this time. Many shelters take what they can as aid, but in one particular case, a shelter had to reluctantly reject free groceries because the donors insisted on taking photos with the HIV patients.

Taking to Facebook, Isaac Tan from Crisis Home, KL shared his story on how he had to decline a donation offer because the individual was adamant on taking images of the HIV patients.

Pang Khee Teik reshared this on his Facebook to speak out about the issue,

“The group insisted that a photo was taken with the groceries being surrounded by the folks from the home, despite the shelter explaining the stigma surrounding people with HIV will negatively impact the individuals thus photos with them was out of the question.

“It is good that the shelter stood their ground and said no for the dignity of their tenants.

“We should not make a habit of taking photographs as a condition of receiving donations and force people to do things they are not comfortable with, just for the sake of receiving a donation.”

Many debated that the donor was adamant for taking photos possibly due to their SOP as proof of donation. However, others rebuted saying that the Home can issue a receipt as proof instead of revealing the identity of their HIV tenants – which can cause a huge impact on them due to social stigma.

---

Added on
There's truly nothing more despicable than people taking advantage of people who are less fortunate than they are.

🇺🇸 Biden’s ambitious LGBT agenda poises him to be nation’s most pro-equality president in history
Source: https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/202...lgbtq-policies/



Joe Biden became a fast friend of the LGBTQ community as vice president in 2012 by stating his support for same-sex marriage in a television interview even before his boss, President Barack Obama, did.

That same year, outside an Obama-Biden campaign office in Florida, it was Biden’s unexpected support for the transgender community that elevated his status from an LGBTQ ally to a champion. When the mother of a Miss Trans New England pageant winner asked Biden if he would help transgender people, she later told reporters, Biden whispered that it was the “civil rights issue of our time.”

Since then, Biden’s views on the LGBTQ community have become clearer and louder.

When he left the vice presidency, Biden partnered with other advocates to start the As You Are campaign to advocate for families’ acceptance of their transgender children, which “dramatically improves their child’s self-esteem and decreases the likelihood they will experience depression or suicidal ideation,” the Biden Foundation was cited as saying in a 2019 announcement.

Now advocates say the 78-year-old will be the nation’s most pro-LGBTQ president ever. He and Vice President-elect Kamala D. Harris have promised an ambitious slate of actions that would go beyond reversing what LGBTQ advocates have called President Trump’s “discrimination administration.”

The Trump Accountability Project, by the advocacy group GLAAD, has recorded more than 180 anti-LGBTQ statements and actions by the Trump administration and those in the president’s circle since January 2017, including a proposal that would allow homeless shelters to house transgender people according to their sex assigned at birth rather than their gender identity.

Transgender rights have become a lightning rod in the relentless culture war that has come to dominate American politics, pitting conservative Christians who want their religious views to be accommodated against liberal and secular Americans who think some of those views trample on minority groups’ rights.

Just weeks before it leaves office, the Trump administration handed out a 400-page document detailing how federal contractors and recipients of government grants can cite their religious views to refuse to provide health coverage for birth control and other reproductive care and adoption services to single people or LGBTQ couples.

Biden has called religious freedom “a fundamental American value,” but also promised to reverse Trump administration policies that are “misusing these broad exemptions.”

He has committed to overturning every Trump administration rule that limits transgender rights, including tossing out its near-total ban on transgender troops serving in the military on “Day One.” Biden also has promised to reinstate Obama-era guidance for protecting transgender students that the Trump administration withdrew.

🌎 Trans women retain athletic edge after a year of hormone therapy, study finds
Source: https://www.nbcnews.com/feature/nbc-out/tra...-study-n1252764



A new study suggests transgender women maintain an athletic advantage over their cisgender peers even after a year on hormone therapy.

The results, published last month in the British Journal of Sports Medicine, could mean the current one-year waiting period for Olympic athletes who are transitioning is inadequate.

“For the Olympic level, the elite level, I'd say probably two years is more realistic than one year,” said the study's lead author, Dr. Timothy Roberts, a pediatrician and the director of the adolescent medicine training program at Children's Mercy Hospital in Kansas City, Missouri. “At one year, the trans women on average still have an advantage over the cis women," he said, referring to cisgender, or nontransgender, women.

Roberts began investigating the athletic performance of transgender men and women while in the Air Force, working under co-author and physician Lt. Col. Joshua Smalley at a clinic coordinating care for airmen beginning or continuing their gender transition.

Active duty service members are required to take a physical readiness test every six to 12 months. Roberts, Smalley and another co-author, Dr. Dale Ahrendt, realized they had access to robust data on service members before, during and after they started hormone replacement treatment.

The three physicians conducted a retrospective review of medical records and fitness tests for 29 transgender men and 46 transgender women from 2013 to 2018. The Air Force’s fitness assessment includes the number of pushups and situps performed in a minute, and the time required to run 1.5 miles.

They also had records on when the subjects started testosterone or estrogen, the type of hormone used and the number of days from when treatment began to when their hormone levels reached the normal adult range for a cisgender person.

For the first two years after starting hormones, the trans women in their review were able to do 10 percent more pushups and 6 percent more situps than their cisgender female counterparts. After two years, Roberts told NBC News, “they were fairly equivalent to the cisgender women.”

Their running times declined as well, but two years on, trans women were still 12 percent faster on the 1.5 mile-run than their cisgender peers.

Unsurprisingly, testosterone affected the fitness scores of the transgender men they reviewed: Prior to starting hormones, they performed fewer pushups and had slower running times than the cisgender men in the control group. A year into treatment, though, those differences disappeared.

With situps, the trans men were comparable to the cisgender men before treatment and actually exceeded them after a year on testosterone.

The longest any participant was followed was two and a half years, according to Roberts.

He said he’s not suggesting being in the military is the same as being an elite athlete, but, he added, “it’s a comparable situation, where you have someone doing whatever they can to maintain or improve their abilities.”

Joanna Harper, a medical physicist in Portland, Oregon, has conducted research into the effect of testosterone blockers on transgender women runners like herself.

In 2015, she published the first study of transgender women and athletic performance and found that trans women ran at least 10 percent slower after beginning hormones. And, relatively speaking, they did no better against cisgender female runners than they had previously done against cisgender men.

Harper said Roberts’ methodology is solid, but she sees some limitations in the study. In an assessment shared with NBC News, she questioned the lack of data on participants’ individual training habits. She also noted there was no coordination between when subjects started hormones and when they took their annual fitness test.

“The tests were placed into three bins,” Harper said. “One bin of tests that took place in the first year after the start of hormone therapy, one bin of tests that took place between one to two years of hormone therapy, and a third bin that took place between two and two and a half years after the initiation of hormone therapy.”

Lumping the data together could blur out changes that occurred within a 12-month period “and might distort the results notably,” she theorized.

The fact that the trans women were still faster after two years could be due to differences in training intensity, she speculated. But the pushup and situp tests involve muscular strength, technique, muscular endurance and cardiovascular endurance, and “are probably good proxies for success in many team sports.”

Increased scrutiny of trans athletes

As the transgender community has become more visible, their place in athletic competitions has come under increased scrutiny.

In October, the World Rugby League became the first international sporting body to ban transgender women from playing in the women’s division, citing “player welfare risks.” Two months later, a group of 200 elite female athletes — including Billie Jean King, Megan Rapinoe and Candace Parker — signed a friend-of-the-court brief supporting the rights of trans women and girls to participate in female sports.

The brief was filed with the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in response to Idaho’s Fairness in Women’s Sports Act, signed by Gov. Brad Little, a Republican, in March. The law prohibits transgender athletes from competing in school sports consistent with their gender identity, regardless of when they transitioned.

The case is currently before the 9th Circuit after a lower court blocked it from going into effect in August.

"There is no place in any sport for discrimination of any kind,” King in a statement. “I'm proud to support all transgender athletes who simply want the access and opportunity to compete in the sport they love."

Idaho is the first state to pass such a ban, but similar legislation has been introduced in Alabama, Georgia, Indiana, Missouri, New Hampshire, Tennessee and Washington.

In Congress, Sen. Kelly Loeffler, R-Ga., sponsored S.4649, the “Protection of Women and Girls in Sports Act,” which seeks to pull federal funding from any school that allows someone assigned male at birth to compete in girls’ athletics. Sen. Mike Lee, R-Utah, a co-sponsor, calls the measure “a simple question of fairness and physical safety.”

Proponents of such legislation have already started using Roberts’ research to support their cause, but he insists he’s not on board.

“I'm definitely coming out and saying, ‘Hey, this doesn't apply to recreational athletes, doesn't apply to youth athletics,’” he said. “At the recreational level, probably one year is sufficient for most people to be able to compete.”

He also underscored the data he compiled was on adults: The average age of the airmen he studied was 26. A transgender woman who transitions before or at puberty, “doesn't really have any advantage” when it comes to athletic performance, he said. “So that young lady should be allowed to compete with all the other people who are born women.”

It’s at the Olympic level where a few percentage points matter, he said, “and we need to do a few more studies to see if that's a permanent effect.”

“There wasn't really a whole lot of data available when the IOC made their guidelines,” Roberts added, using the acronym for the International Olympic Committee. “Now we have a little bit more.”

Harper, who was a consultant on the IOC’s current recommendations, said the real takeaway from Roberts’ study is that transgender women ultimately do reach parity with cis women in athletic tasks. She, however, doesn’t think Roberts’ findings mean sporting organizations need to require two years of testosterone suppression before trans women can compete against cisgender women.

“It’s not necessary for all advantages to be removed,” she said. “All that is necessary is for trans women to perform more like cisgender women than like cisgender men.”

A ‘totally level’ playing field

Roberts said there is no way to remove all of an athlete’s advantages — regardless of their gender identity.

“People who got testosterone at puberty tend to have narrower hips. If you're taller and have narrower hips, that gives you an advantage that's probably not going to change from testosterone blockers or estrogen,” he said. “On the other hand, we have a lot of elite female athletes who tend to be tall and thin with slender hips — and we're not outlawing them.

Roberts also noted that physical advantages are not the only advantages that some athletes have over others.

“LeBron James' kids have access to the best coaches and the best facilities with the best equipment. They're going to have an advantage over somebody,” he said. “And all of those people are still in the same competition.”

The IOC last revised regulations for transgender competitors in 2016, removing a requirement for gender-confirmation surgery and lowering the minimum requirement for hormone-replacement therapy for trans women from two years to one.

Currently, transgender men can compete in men’s events without any restrictions.

The guidelines, which are employed by most sports federations, also established that trans female athletes must maintain testosterone levels below 10 nanomoles per liter. That’s on the far low end for most cisgender males but higher than average for cisgender women, whose testosterone typically falls between 0.3 and 2.4 nanomoles per liter.

But, Roberts points out, cisgender women with polycystic ovary syndrome and some other conditions can have levels three times that — or even higher. Nearly a third of elite adolescent female athletes have relatively elevated testosterone, compared to just 2 to 12 percent of the general female population. Female Olympians also tend to have higher levels than age-matched controls.​

“The playing field has never been totally level,” Roberts said.

The International Olympic Committee said it is working on new guidelines to be released some time in2021 after the rescheduled Tokyo Summer Games.

“This work is based on an extended consultation to consider not only the medical, scientific and legal perspectives, but also that of human rights, with an emphasis on the view and experiences of affected athletes,” an IOC spokesperson said in an email. “Overall, the discussions to date have confirmed considerable tension between the notions of fairness and inclusion, and the desire and need to protect the women’s category, all of which will need to be reconciled.”

🇲🇾 “Baik Aku Mati”- Sajat Kesal, Terasa Semakin Jauh Dengan Islam
Source: https://murai.my/2021/96229/sajat-baik-aku-...h-dengan-islam/

Usahawan sensasi, Nur Sajat Kamaruzzaman atau lebih dikenali sebagai Sajat telah mengaktifkan semula akaun Instagram nya semalam. Lebih mengejutkan, Sajat turut memuat naik hantaran beserta sebuah video rakaman yang mendakwa dia telah dianayai oleh Jabatan Agama Islam Selangor (JAIS) baru-baru ini.



Dakwa Dikasari JAIS

Menurut Sajat, dia telah memberi kerjasama sepenuhnya kepada JAIS selepas dia mendapat surat perintah untuk memberikan kerjasama bagi membantu siasatan di bawah Enakmen Jenayah Negeri Selangor No.9 Tahun 1995 pada 6 Januari lalu. Bagaimananpun, dedah pelantun Makhluk Penggoda ini dia telah dikasari setelah cuba menghalang dirinya daripada digari oleh pihak JAIS.

Difahamkan, di dalam video tersebut pihak JAIS telah memberitahu Sajat bahawa dia telah ditahan atas dakwaan tersebut. Terkejut dengan perintah itu, Sajat berkeras untuk berjumpa dengan ibu bapanya di luar bilik siasatan namun dihalang oleh kakitangan yang bertugas kerana mereka memberitahu akan membawa masuk ahli keluarganya itu . Sajat yang merakam secara tersembunyi segala perbincangan tersebut, turut bertengkar dengan pihak JAIS sebelum menunjukkan kesan luka dan lebam dipercayai disebabkan pergelutan tersebut.

Putus Asa

Dakwa Sajat lagi yang turut menangis beberapa kali, dia berasa kesal kerana diperlakukan sedemikian dan menerusi Insta Story nya dia turut meluahkan isi hatinya itu sehingga tular di media sosial.

Dalam perkongsian tersebut, Sajat mendakwa dia seperti sudah berputus asa dengan agama Islam kerana apa sahaja kebaikan yang dilakukan pasti menerima kecaman orang ramai.

“Adakah aku seorang kafir? Aku selalu bersedekah, membayar zakat. Tetapi kerana pakaianku adalah wanita, aku dihukum oleh agamaku. Orang macam aku ini tak layak memeluk Islam, sebab orang macam aku ini digari dan dihukum teruk dalam agamaku.”

“Buat apa pun tetap haram, dan aku rasa Islam itu berat pada aku. Jika aku keluar Islam baru mereka happy. Patut ke aku keluar dari agamaku?” luah Sajat.

Terdahulu, pihak JAIS menerima aduan berkaitan Sajat menganjurkan satu majlis tahlil dan doa selamat bersama dengan anak-anak tahfiz pada 23 Februari tahun lalu. Ketika itu, Sajat telah memakai lengkap baju kurung serta bertudung seperti seorang wanita dan secara tidak langsung didakwa di bawah Seksyen 10 iaitu menghina agama Islam atau menyebabkan agama Islam dipandang hina.

Baffles me a lot when the usage of the word "bang" or "abang" from a man to another, referring to older malay men are considered as disgusting and geli

Or is it only disgusting and geli when they know our sexuality?

This is shallow and dumb.

Considering the word "bang" or "abang" in malay has always been used to refer to "big bro".

So if the word bang/abang is considered as geli and jelek to the malay men then why use bro even?

There's nothing wrong with the usage of those words, in fact it is trying to express your respect to an older malay men.

Yeah, I agree. I guess some people just need an excuse to be homophobic or they just have toxic masculinity. There's nothing wrong with that word imo.

I remember reading a profile on Grindr one time which says "Don't call me bro. I'm not related to you." or something like that. So the problem isn't limited to straight guys only.

Does that make her bi? Will Ken now be gay cause Barbie has a gf? Haha.

🇲🇾 Malaysia saw ‘reversal’ in human rights after Perikatan came into power, says international watchdog
Source: https://www.malaymail.com/news/malaysia/202...er-says/1940292



KUALA LUMPUR, Jan 14 — Malaysia has regressed in terms of human rights since the Perikatan Nasional (PN) government, led by prime minister Tan Sri Muhyiddin Yassin, took over in March 2020, global watchdog Human Rights Watch (HRW) said in its annual report.

The report released yesterday stated that the first nine months under the new coalition government showed alleged crackdown on freedom of speech and peaceful assembly, threats against the media, discrimination against migrants, and retreat from genuine police accountability.

“Malaysia has undergone an incredible reversal of human rights in 2020 — all for the worst.

“Hopes for human rights reforms have never risen so fast in Malaysia nor collapsed so quickly.” its deputy Asia director Phil Robertson said in a statement.

The report stated that the downturn of media freedom was shown during Al Jazeera’s coverage of Malaysia’s treatment of migrants during Covid-19 pandemic back in July last year, with the authorities having probed the international media for sedition, defamation, and violation of the Communications and Multimedia Act.

“Police questioned six Al Jazeera staff members and raided the organization’s offices in Kuala Lumpur. In August, Malaysia refused to renew the visas of two Al Jazeera journalists based in the country,” the report said.

HRW pointed out in its report that Malaysia’s effort to contain Covid-19 pandemic has resulted in discrimination of marginalised communities such as Rohingya Muslims, whose boats have been pushed back out to the sea, and overcrowded migrants in an unsanitary detention facilities prior to their deportation.

“The authorities pushed boatloads of desperate Rohingya refugees who were trying to reach Malaysia’s shores back out to sea, claiming that they were doing so to prevent the spread of Covid-19.

“The authorities ultimately conducted multiple raids, ensnaring thousands of migrants and detaining them in overcrowded and unsanitary immigration detention centers to await deportation,” HRW said in its 761-page World Report 2021.

The global human rights group said that police abuse remains unjustified due to its lack of accountability after the PN government rejected the previous government’s bill on containing police misconducts and introduced a “toothless” Independent Police Conduct Commission bill that was short of investigative power and authorities to punish wrongdoings.

“In August, the government withdrew a Bill submitted by the prior administration to create an Independent Police Complaints and Misconduct Commission because the police objected to it.

“The government instead introduced a Bill to create a toothless Independent Police Conduct Commission that lacks both key investigative powers and the authority to punish wrongdoing,” the report said.

In another effort to curb Covid-19 pandemic, Malaysia decided to close its schools while failing to provide equal access to the internet which has particularly affected rural and indigenous students, the report said.

HRW also highlighted the issues of religious freedom whereby Muslims are not allowed to practice other branches of Islam other than officially-recognised denomination of Sunni and deeming others deviants — pointing to the much-persecuted Ahmadiyyah community.

The report also said that Malaysia continues to punish the lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender (LGBT) people through federal law and state Shariah laws that prohibited both same-sex relations and non-normative gender expression, resulting in frequent arrests of transgender persons.

It also highlighted that activists have filed two court cases, in the High Court and the Federal Court, challenging the existence and use of these laws in Selangor.

“In July, the minister in charge of religious affairs gave ‘full licence’ to the religious authorities to take action against transgender people, both through arrests and religious education to ‘return’ them to the ‘right path’,” the report said.

In the report by HRW, it stated that Malaysia’s religious authorities lodged a report against Nicole Fong after she responded to the religious affairs minister’s statement by posting a series of infographics online critical of the mukhayyam program — a state-sponsored Islamic “rehabilitation” programme for Muslim LGBT persons.

In its report last year, HRW had said then that Malaysia remained slow in its reform agenda last year despite getting a new government in the form of Pakatan Harapan.

The delay in abolishing the Sedition Act and the use of other draconian security laws, continued gender discrimination and child marriages, asylum seekers being treated as illegal immigrants and crackdowns on Shiah Muslims clearly showed the government’s failure in improving human rights, the report said.

🌎 Kristen Stewart Is The Highest Grossing LGBTQ+ Actor On Netflix
Source: https://www.curvemag.com/us/kristen-stewart...tor-on-netflix/



Netflix fast became everyone’s go-to to get their TV fix in 2020, and turns out the streaming service is killing it in terms of diversity – we love to see it!

But who is on track to earn the most in their careers? OnBuy.com Movies and TV department wanted to ascertain the 20 highest earning LGBTQ+ actors on Netflix, by looking at the earnings and net worth of top stars, and the results are finally in…

Coming out on top is the star of Twilight Kristen Stewart, with a huge 70 million dollar net worth.

She is followed closely by RuPaul at 60 million dollars and Gillian Anderson smashing it with a net worth of 40 million dollars.

Last on the list is Mj Rodriguez from Netflix’s 2020 hit show Pose; she has a reported net worth of 1 million dollars currently, however we predict even bigger things from her in the future!

Which members of the community are the most successful?

Onbuy.com can reveal that 3 out of the top 5 earners are bisexual women, making them the top earners in 2020 with a combined net worth of 152 million dollars. This is compared to gay men whose combined net worth comes to 111 million dollars.

Lesbians came in third place with a combined net worth of 55.5 million dollars, followed by the transgender community at 16.5 million dollars and finally queer at 3 million dollars.

Where are they most successful?

LGBTQ+ actors earnt a combined 139 million dollars in films compared with a whopping 198.5 million dollars from TV shows, making the TV industry a more successful one so far for the LGBTQ+ community.

Which Netflix Show is Most Inclusive?

The show on Netflix with the highest concentration of LGBTQ+ actors is Pose, with 140 trans actors and crew members and 35 non-trans LGBTQ+ characters – this is the highest number of any TV show in history!

Orange is the New Black comes in second with 17 LGBTQ+ actors and crew.

In third place is Ratched, with 11 LGBTQ+ actors and crew.

This post has been edited by internaldisputes: Jan 19 2021, 09:15 AM

It's barely a week since the emergency was announced and they already busy going after marginal communities when they are saying it's supposed to be about containing the pandemic.

🇺🇸 Biden selects transgender doctor Rachel Levine as assistant health secretary
Source: https://www.washingtonpost.com/health/2021/...biden-hhs-pick/



President-elect Joe Biden announced Tuesday that he will nominate Rachel Levine, Pennsylvania’s top health official, as his assistant secretary of health. Levine, a pediatrician, would become the first openly transgender federal official to be confirmed by the U.S. Senate.

“Dr. Rachel Levine will bring the steady leadership and essential expertise we need to get people through this pandemic — no matter their zip code, race, religion, sexual orientation, gender identity, or disability — and meet the public health needs of our country in this critical moment and beyond,” Biden said in a statement. “She is a historic and deeply qualified choice to help lead our administration’s health efforts.”

As Pennsylvania’s secretary of health, Levine has risen to national prominence for leading the state’s public health response to the coronavirus pandemic, despite repeated and ugly attacks on her gender identity.

Biden’s transition team noted that Levine — appointed by Gov. Tom Wolf (D) in 2017 as acting health secretary — was confirmed three times by the Republican-controlled state Senate to serve as secretary of health and the state’s physician general. At the time, she was one of only a handful of transgender officials serving in elected or appointed offices nationwide.

If confirmed as assistant secretary of health, Levine would be the highest-ranking transgender official in the U.S. government.

“President-elect Biden said throughout his campaign that his administration would represent America," said Mara Keisling, the executive director of the National Center for Transgender Equality. “Today, he made clear that transgender people are an important part of our country.”

Serving under Xavier Becerra, Biden’s nominee to head the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, Levine would oversee key health offices and programs across the department, 10 regional health offices nationwide, the Office of the Surgeon General and the U.S. Public Health Service Commissioned Corps.

In a statement released Tuesday afternoon, Levine said she was proud of the work she has been able to accomplish at the Pennsylvania Department of Health. She highlighted her efforts to address the opioid epidemic by developing “innovative models to get people into treatment and into recovery" and the work her team has done to fight diseases such as HIV and Hepatitis C.

“I am proud of the work we have done as an administration to address health equity, and the work I have done personally to raise awareness about LGBTQ equity issues,” she said. "And I am extremely proud of the work we have done during the last year to save lives in the face of the COVID-19 global pandemic. I look forward to the opportunity to continue to serve Pennsylvanians, and all Americans, as part of the Biden Administration if I am fortunate enough to be confirmed to this position.”

Her nomination comes after an election season in which a record number of LGBTQ candidates ran for office but after four years of a presidential administration that repeatedly erased protections for transgender people — in health care, federal employment, federal prisons, homeless shelters and other housing services receiving federal funding.

Fake penis and vagina on adults are more life threatening to them than pandemic. That's their logic.

Ugh, yes. I think our best hope right now is for the government to drive the straight people crazy too so that they will understand how we feel all this time and join our struggle.

🇲🇾 Have a heart, stop bullying LGBT, says Suhakam
Source: https://www.freemalaysiatoday.com/category/...t-says-suhakam/



PETALING JAYA: Criticism continues to mount against Putrajaya’s latest proposal to hand down harsher punishments to the lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender (LGBT) community, with the Human Rights Commission of Malaysia (Suhakam) joining the chorus of those expressing alarm over the matter.

Currently, under Act 355, Syariah courts are empowered to impose maximum sentences of three years’ jail, a fine of RM5,000, and six strokes of the rotan, it said.

However, Suhakam argued that all forms of torture and other cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment including whipping are absolutely prohibited under international human rights standards, particularly the Universal Declaration of Human Rights (UDHR).

“Suhakam stresses that all individuals, regardless of their sexual orientation or gender identity, should have the same fundamental rights as enshrined in the Federal Constitution including their right to privacy and to live with dignity,” it said in a statement.

Deputy minister in the Prime Minister’s Department (religious affairs) Ahmad Marzuk Shaary had earlier said the government intended to mete out heavier punishments against the LGBT community by increasing the sentencing limits in the Syariah Courts (Criminal Jurisdiction) Act 1965 (Act 355).

Rights group, Lawyers for Liberty has urged the authorities to stop using the LGBT community as a “convenient punching bag” and warned that the vilification of the community “serves to help no one and will only harm the very citizens the law is supposed to protect.”

Parti Sosialis Malaysia (PSM) also called it a “new low” and urged the government to focus on the pandemic instead.

Suhakam went on to call on the government to reconsider the proposal to amend Act 355 and ensure that it is in line with the international human rights standards.

“Suhakam further recommends that the government adopt a more compassionate approach by respecting human rights for all through continuous dialogues and awareness raising programmes with the relevant stakeholders.”