Malaysia plans to launch a programme targeting trans women with ‘conversion’ therapy.
A government official has confirmed the programme which he insists is voluntary.
Ghazali Taib, a Terengganu state official said that the targeted programme will allow trans women to “make a choice”.
“The government’s concept is not [to] force. [We] give them a path to make the best choices for their lives,” he continued.
Health ministry figures from 2014 estimated that there are 24,000 trans people in Malaysia but there no official estimates for the numbers of trans people.
Malaysia has been accused of an anti-LGBT crackdown in recent years.
A report from Human Rights Watch this year said state-sponsored discrimination against LGBT people is “pervasive”.
Malaysian health authorities earlier this year backtracked on an anti-gay video competition aimed at “preventing” homosexuality and transgenderism.
The country also became the second to censor Beauty and the Beast after its director revealed the film contains an “exclusively gay moment.”
Malaysia’s Deputy Prime Minister also this year vowed to block a planned gay festival in the country’s capital – and ban its organisers from the country.
The Malaysian press had gone into overdrive over the plans for a White Party Kuala Lumpur, a spin-off of the region’s largest annual gay music festival which takes place in Bangkok, Thailand.
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