Maharashtra health minister thinks LGBT community needs "psychological treatment"

Despite the widespread condemnation for the Goa Youth Affairs minister after he felt the need for clinics to “cure” LGBT youth and “normalise” them, the Maharashtra Health Minister has now jumped onto the bandwagon and said there was need for ‘psychological treatment’ for them. According to Deepak Sawant, who incidentally happens to be a doctor, said that the LGBT community is in need of “psychological treatment and counselling” in the Maharashtra Assembly. According to an  Indian Express report, while responding on a question to curbing the spread of HIV in the community on Monday, Sawant said, “There is a need for psychological treatment and counselling of the community. We would work with NGOs working in the sector.” [caption id=“attachment_1702427” align=“alignleft” width=“380”]  Representational Image. AFP.[/caption] Earlier this year, Goa’s Sports and Youth Affairs Minister Ramesh Tawadkar, promised to establish centres to treat LGBT youth, and make them “normal”. “We will make them (LGBT youth) normal. We will have a centre for them. Like Alcoholic Anonymous centres, we will have centres. We will train them and give them medicines too,” he had said. However, finding a cure for homosexuality seems to a favourite for many. In 2013, Baba Ramdev had offered to “cure homosexuals” his Patanjali ashram in Haridwar. He further spoke about how it is unnatural and completely curable. “The practice of homosexuality is unscientific, unnatural, uncivilised, immoral, irreligious and abnormal. Homosexuality is not genetic. If our parents were homosexuals, then we would not have been born. So it’s unnatural,” he said.