KUALA LUMPUR, Sept 25 — Malaysian transgenders seeking medical care are still facing discrimination in the local healthcare system due to the social and institutional stigma against their community, claimed a human rights report on abuses against the minority group released today.

According to the report by international watchdog Human Rights Watch (HRW), transgenders allegedly face even more serious discrimination in government facilities, made worse by the fact that most of them cannot not afford private healthcare.

“Health workers ogled and commented on their bodies, refused to touch them, or touched their sexual organs unnecessarily.

“They were placed in male or female wards without regard for their gender identity,” said the report, in listing down experiences face by many of its 42 transwomen and three transmen respondents.

Several respondents recounted that some doctors were even inappropriately “curious” of their bodies, especially of genitals and the transwomen’s breasts.

“I had one case of a doctor who checked my pelvic area even though I was there for something completely unrelated,” said a transman in Kuala Lumpur called Ron.

Respondents in the report also complained of medical staff who were uncomfortable of treating them, with some even refusing to touch them.

“I went to a nurse at the general hospital. The nurse didn’t want to touch me. She asked me to put in the thermometer myself [in my mouth], then to put it back in the tray, and then she immediately put it in a separate container with lots of Dettol,” a transwoman called Sharan recounted her experience in the Sungai Buloh Hospital in 2011.

“She taught me how to use the [blood] pressure machine, to squeeze it, tighten it, so that she wouldn’t have to touch me. I felt as if I have a disease — if you touch me, are you going to become transgender as well?”

HRW however conceded that the discrimination does not happen across the board, but was merely reflective of personal experience.

“Some transwomen said that they had encountered positive experiences with doctors and nurses at public hospitals, including one HIV-positive transwoman from Kedah who said her doctor at Sultanah Bahiyah public hospital was supportive of her gender identity,” said the report.

Despite that, fear of discrimination has stopped many transgenders from seeking medical care, even after they were sexually assaulted, it said.

Many also resorted to buying their hormone treatments over-the-counter rather than finding a medical professional, said the report.

HRW pointed out that sometime during the 1980s, transgenders could undergo sex reassignment surgeries (SRS) run by a team of doctors and psychologists at the University of Malaya (UM) Hospital, now known as UM Medical Centre.

The service was however terminated after only six patients went under the knife, partly as a result of a fatwa, or religious decree by the National Fatwa Council, which prohibited SRS in 1982.

Although the fatwa was not legally-binding as it was never gazetted by any state, no hospitals have offered SRS since, leaving transgenders to head to Thailand to undergo the operation.

Transgenderism is described as Gender Identity Disorder (GID) under the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders Fourth Edition (DSM IV), or more recently Gender Identity Dysphoria.

GID is widely recognised as a life-long medical condition with no discernible “cure”.

Besides the transgenders, HRW also interviewed among others lawyers, outreach workers, human rights activist, medical professionals, and a representative of the Malaysian Department of Islamic Development (Jakim) for the report.

Muslim-majority Malaysia continues to reject the perceived rise in lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender (LGBT) activities, which they deem to be an assault against Islam together with growing calls for greater civil liberties.

The issue is compounded by the intermingling of politics and religion in a country where the latter has become a major platform from which to appeal for support.

“Transwomen” or “transgender” are terms used to refer to those who were born male but associate themselves with the female identity, and has nothing to do with sexual preferences.