Addressing ECTA With Serophobia & Misogyny: No Way Forward
By Chaminda Weerawardhana –February 23, 2016
Dr Chaminda Weerawardhana
Addressing bilateral trade With Serophobia & Misogyny
In December 2015, a medical doctor-turned politician and serving MP,Nalinda Jayathissa, demonstrated an appalling level of homophobia and transphobia in an interview with the Daily News. Several commentators and analysts highlighted the ignorance and insensitivity of these assumptions, all the more worrying when they came from a young MP representing a party with a non-negligible support base among educated youth, especially in university student circles. Despite several op-ed columns in Sinhala and English and letters addressed to the party leadership by LGBTQI advocacy groups, the JVP is yet to clarify whether Jayathissa’s views represent the JVP’s official position on LGBTQI rights, or not.
In February 2016, yet another medical doctor-turned MP, this time a supporter of ex-President Rajapaksa, has sought to score points by publicly demonstrating an alarming level of serophobia. The advocacy websiteStop Serophobia defines the term ‘serophobia’ as a manifestation of fear and aversion by certain people towards people living with HIV. Although the term is yet to enter leading English language dictionaries such as Oxford, Cambridge and Collins, serophobia is alive and well across the world. It is primarily the result of a lack of awareness about HIV and of the tremendous social stigma attached to people living with HIV. Serophobia is a form of abject discrimination, and most importantly perhaps, one that prevents open, healthy and informative dialogues about HIV and in living, working and interacting with HIV-positive people.
The photo
The MP in question,Ramesh Pathirana, published a social media update with a picture carying misogynist connotations, making a highly serophobic comment. A cursory glance at the picture alone suffices to gather the message the MP is trying to convey – a derogatory and pejorative message on (cis and trans) women and sex work. Pictures of this nature are invariably couched in a high doze of misogynist and patriarchal attitudes. Those who post such images on social media never question the socio-economic circumstances that prompt many (cis and trans) women, as well as men to sell sex. It is also ignored that in any society, and especially in the context of South Asian societies, omnipresent class (and caste) factors are at interplay when it comes to people, especially cis and trans women, being dragged into sex work.
