Hundreds of protesters in Peru’s capital on Friday marched to demand that the government scrap a new law that describes transgender people, among others, as having a mental illness so they can access health benefits.
About 500 demonstrators peacefully walked the streets of downtown Lima, hoisting banners with slogans that read: “No more stigmas” and “My identity is not a disease.”
“It is a decree that takes us back three decades,” said Jorge Apolaya, spokesman of the Collective Pride March, a Lima-based rights group.
Photo: Reuters
“We cannot live in a country where we are considered sick,” he said.
The law, which was approved administratively last week by Peruvian President Dina Boluarte’s administration, specifies that those who identify as transgender, along with “cross-dressers” and “others with gender identity disorders,” are considered to be diagnosed with “illnesses” that are eligible for mental health services through both public and private providers.
The protesters reached the health ministry offices, but no clashes were reported.
“Gender identities are no longer considered pathologies,” said activist Gahela Cari Contreras, who accused Boluarte’s administration of trying to trample on the LGBTQ+ community’s rights. “We’re not going to let them.”
Critics of the law have said that its update of the country’s health regulations was unnecessary, as existing rules already allowed for universal access to mental health services.
Government officials have sought to chalk up the controversy as a misunderstanding.
In a statement released shortly after the law was promulgated, the Peruvian Ministry of Health said that it rejects the stigmatization of LGBTQ+ people and that the legal language simply seeks to ensure more complete health coverage.
The ministry “categorically reaffirms respect for the dignity of the person and their free actions within the framework of human rights, providing health services for their benefit,” it said.
Protesters were not persuaded and some medical experts advocated for the law to be corrected through an amendment.
“We don’t see any need to incorporate diagnoses or pathologies that no longer exist into health insurance plans,” Medical College of Peru dean Pedro Riega Lopez said.
Additional reporting by AFP
Through the noise of rushing papers and whirring belts at a print factory in Kyoto, two creators watch their photo essay come to life in broadsheet form — part of an effort to win new audiences in the age of artificial intelligence (AI). Despite the decline of the publishing industry, self-publication and handmade “zine” magazines are growing in popularity in Japan, reflecting the nation’s enduring love of paper in the digital era. While speaking to Agence France-Presse at the plant, his hands black with ink, one of the creators, Kazuma Obara, said: “I think [paper] is a medium that engages all five
‘ABSURD MISTAKE’: The election commission said that there had been a failure to anticipate turnout after 14 polling stations ran short of ballot papers South Korean riot police yesterday cleared protesters from a Seoul polling station after a 35-hour blockade sparked by a shortage of ballot papers during local elections earlier this week. Wednesday’s election was the first nationwide vote since South Korean President Lee Jae-myung took office following the ouster of Yoon Suk-yeol over his short-lived martial law declaration. Lee’s ruling Democratic Party swept most races, but failed to flip the crucial Seoul mayoral seat. The South Korean National Election Commission apologized, blaming a failure to anticipate turnout after 14 polling stations in Seoul ran short of ballot papers. Some polling stations stayed open until 10pm to
Australian researchers have trained lab-grown brain cells on a silicon computer chip to play the 1990s shooter game Doom and said they are just scratching the surface of what the neurons could be capable of doing. It is the science-fiction work of biotech boffins at Cortical Labs, who researched and developed the technology that harnesses the workings of the brain’s networking system. Each so-called “biological computer” contains about 200,000 living human brain cells, grown from stem cells that were harvested from blood donations. Having mastered the simple computer game Pong, where a paddle is moved up and down to send a ball
France experienced its hottest spring on record, the French weather service said on Tuesday, after an exceptional early heat wave that also broke highs for the season in England and Wales. Meteo-France said the average nationwide temperature over March to May was 13.8°C — about 1.7°C above the norm, and surpassing records set in 2011 and 2020. “The warmest spring since records began in 1900,” it said in a bulletin. All three months were warmer than average, but the onset of an “unprecedented heatwave” late last month pushed the mercury to highs typically seen at the height of the summer. “Our country had never
RSS