• Situation:

Over 30% of Vietnamese believe being lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender and queer (LGBTQ+) is a disease, despite medical and scientific evidence to the contrary. The stigmatisation and discrimination against LGBTQ+ people, particularly evidenced by “gender treatments" and “conversion therapy", has led to physical and mental trauma that can last a lifetime.

• Brief

iSEE believes that all forms of pathologization and discrimination based on sexual orientation violate human rights and have endangered many people’s lives. We have to take a stand against that.

• Objectives

To show how absurd this belief is, spurring people to petition local health authorities to release a definitive statement that LGBTQ+ is not a disease – a definitive step towards the discontinuation of conversion therapy and improper treatment of LGBTQ+ people.

To make people realise the absurdity of their belief and prevent further discrimination, we posed a reasonable question: IF LGBTQ+ IS A DISEASE, SHOULDN’T THE “AFFLICTED” BE ENTITLED TO SICK LEAVE?

We asked practising doctors to issue valid medical certificates, then enlisted LGBTQ+ volunteers to go undercover and ask their superiors for sick leave. Captured as a video and spread online as part of a social campaign, their encounters got millions reconsidering the veracity of their prejudiced beliefs.

In November 2021, Pride Month in Vietnam, we started the campaign with a social experiment challenging bigots in the workplace and schools, arming volunteers in the LGBTQ+ community with sick leave, which they used to confront their superiors’ and teachers’ bigotry, secretly capturing their reactions to expose their homophobia and conflicting double standards. These reactions were then spread on social media to get online communities reacting. Many experts from the medical field and the academe weighed in to provide expert opinions and more importantly, education.

To make a tangible impact, the campaign led the community and its newly-found allies to petition local health authorities to release a definitive statement debunking this misguided belief. All of this put a giant step in discontinuing pathologization, conversion therapy and improper treatment of LGBTQ+ people – for the first time ever in Vietnam history.

BUILD HYPE

We launched our social experiment video on social media: “Leave with Pride – What happens when being LGBTQ+ is a disease?”, in order to bring the issue to light. This triggered social users to discuss the stigma and discrimination caused by the prejudice of LGBTQ+ being a disease and led them to our petition page which encouraged local health authorities to voice up.

Week 3 & 4

GO MASS

A fair number of popular local newspapers, local influencers and international associations joined the conversation. Many experts from the medical field and the academe weighed in. The petition was shared nationwide and got people of different ages and cities to sign.

Week 5 and onwards

AMPLIFY

We compiled people’s signatures from the petition and presented them to the Ministry of Health and WHO in Vietnam.

The campaign was spread nationwide inspiring LGBTQ+ people to stand up and share their voices against the homophobic double standards.

28K+ personal stories shared through our petition page.

84K+ people signed our petition, which is 68% higher than the initial target. The petition was incredibly successful in a country where petitions were usually ignored and restricted by the government. The success led us to many other outcomes.

105M+ social impressions.

35M+ people impacted.

3,000% increase in post engagement on iSEE’s digital and social pages.

In a landmark event for the Vietnamese LGBTQ+ community, the World Health Organization was compelled to release an official statement categorically reaffirming that LGBTQ+ is not a disease. All of this led to the Ministry of Health releasing an official order demanding all medical workers end discriminatory treatments. A historic event in conservative Vietnam.