PlusNews.org
Colombo, (PlusNews) – In Asia, as in many parts of the world, men who have sex with men often hide their sexual preferences for fear of being harassed by police, ostracised by their families or discriminated against by their communities.
But transgender people, who do not identify with the sexuality they were born with – known as “warias” in Indonesia and “hijimas” in parts of India – are less likely to hide their sexual orientation, and face even higher levels of stigma and discrimination than men who have sex with men (MSM).
The result, according to presenters at a special session on transgenderism at the 8th International Congress on AIDS in Asia and the Pacific (ICAAP), in Colombo, Sri Lanka, this week, is to push them further underground, making them extremely hard to reach with HIV prevention, care and treatment.