Why should you sign this petition?

There are many Sri Lankans who will click on this page in fury, angry that anyone even suggested LGBTQ rights should be upheld here, ready to go repost their Facebook essays on how queer people are destroying ‘pure innocent children’ and so on.

Those people - the homophobes and transphobes in the world - are not people who we need in our parliament, or even in our society, if we want to improve the quality of life in this country for everyone.

The Sri Lankan penal code contains an outdated law written in the British Colonial era in 1883 - the criminalization of ‘sexual acts against the order of nature’, a.k.a same-sex relations (the description of this ‘crime’ is false, which this text will go into later). The penalty is 10 years imprisonment, far more than even murderers and rapists recieve in today’s world. A famous example is the recent case of Sean ‘Diddy’ Combs, an American man guilty of (among other charges) sex trafficking and the exploitation of young children. He was given only four years in federal prison. It is not logical that the prison sentence for being attracted to the same gender, is longer than what serial rapists are given.

The aforementioned law in our penal code was ruled ‘unenforceable’ by the Supreme Court, but it is extremely inhumane that it still exists and risks happening. Homophobia and transphobia did not even exist in Sri Lanka before our colonization by Christian nations. Even one of our most significant ancient literature, the Mahavamsa, contains stories of same-sex love.

Discrimination against the LGBTQ community is not recognized in Sri Lanka either, and they are constantly subjected to harassment by figures of authority, like our cowardly police. Same-sex marriage is still illegal, authorities can detain trans individuals just for existing in society, and gender-affirming care is extremely restricted. All of this has to change if you truly want to make Sri Lanka become a better, safer country.

Yes, proper LGBTQ rights and protections will help Sri Lanka achieve this. Must be surprising for homophobes to hear, right? Statistics show that LGBTQ-inclusive laws benefit the economy, through higher tourism rates from Western countries (which Sri Lanka relies heavily on), an increased GDP, and even the World Bank has proven that stigma towards the queer community holds back national economic output.

Supported by the World Health Organization, LGBTQ inclusiveness also improves overall societal well-being by reducing rates of substance abuse, depression, and suicide, which decreases the strain and financial burden on the healthcare system. It is no coincidence that most countries with support and protection for the LGBTQ community have the highest quality-of-life in the world (e.g: Spain, Norway, Switzerland, Canada…)

But above all, the most pressing reason to support the inclusion of LGBTQ rights — one that should be obvious — is simply that they are human and deserve to be supported just like the rest of us.

Answering common rebuttals

1. The LGBTQ community are simply people who are not straight (a.k.a attracted only to the opposite gender), and/or not cisgender (a.k.a their gender identity is the same as the sex they were born as. Yes, gender and sex are two different things! Look it up). Roughly 1 in 6 people are part of this community. You have friends who are queer, family members, children, teachers and students, even if you think they don’t ‘look like it’ or haven’t yet told you. Queer people are not alien and foreign; chances are they make up a large amount of the people you know. 

2. Queer people are not ‘unnatural’ or ‘abnormal’ either. They have always existed in society — the earliest evidence of queer people is from 10,100 BC during the Stone Age, and the earliest documented same-sex couple is from 2400 BC. This was long, long before the traditions and religions that say ‘being queer is a sin’ were even invented. It is impossible, with this evidence, to state that being LGBTQ is unnatural when such individuals have existed from the beginning of humanity itself.  Queer people have existed far longer than your brainless prejudices, and will continue to do so. 

Furthermore, same-sex relationships have been found in over 1,500 species within the animal kingdom — for example, it is very prominent in the primate species (our closest relatives!), in birds, in marine mammals, and even insects, along with countless others. They are undeniably as natural and normal as straight relationships. There is no difference.

3. Being queer is also not a ‘choice’ or something kids are tricked into being. Open your narrow minds and look into the stories of the community.  Many of them will tell you they spent years wishing they weren’t queer due to the harassment they have faced. No person would make the trouble to pretend to be part of a minority group and undergo suffering and hatred for no reason. Being queer is not a choice. If it was, those millions of people who have been exiled, tortured and executed for their identity could have simply ‘chosen’ to change. This is not possible, and to suggest that it is, is ignorant.

So many others learn  in childhood that they are not heterosexual, or that they don’t feel right with their assigned gender, without any outside influence whatsoever. How is that possible, if being queer is a so-called ‘evil thing’ children are tricked into being?

4. Finally, if your problem with this petition is that you believe being queer is a ‘sin’, then put into plain words, you are so idiotic it’s unbelievable you even have the right to vote. Why not think with your own minds and not by blindly following everything tradition says for once? Does it make any sense that love between two consenting adults - the same purehearted love every religion teaches, that makes us who we are as humans - can be something evil, just because that love is between people who are the same gender? There is no logical reason that cultures and faiths that promote kindness and respect would want to punish queer people for simply wanting to exist. No logical reason.

What we need from the Parliament of Sri Lanka:

• Abolish the laws criminalizing and condemning same-sex relations. Same-sex marriage must be legalized.
• Gender-affirming care must be more prioritized and made easier to access.
• The trans community must feel supported and safe while expressing themselves as who they are.
• The non-binary, intersex and genderfluid community must be recognized and protected, neither of which they are right now.
• Social services within the country must take action for those who are abused or rejected by their families for their identity.
• The standards of those who work in the mental health field must be raised. It is dangerous to spread falsehoods about queer identity being an illness, and to encourage ideas like conversion therapy.
• Discrimination against the queer community must be recognized as a crime, and the community protected by the law as all minorities should be.
• Conversation in schools about LGBTQ rights must happen just like the topics of gender and racial equality. Children must learn to have basic respect and decency. Your precious kids won’t be traumatized if they hear the word ‘gay’, in case you need reminding.

To the simple-minded conservative community our country is so full of - who have made these basic human rights so hard to attain thus far - grow up, stop whining, and perhaps focus your hate on yourself instead. Your desperation to stick with the outdated values of the past just for your own selfish beliefs is pathetic.

LGBTQ+ Sri Lankans are not asking for special treatment, but for the same dignity given to every other citizen. Progress can only happen when the people demand change. Regardless of where you’re from, if you believe that all humans deserve the simple right to live and love freely, sign and share this petition.