While consensual gay sex may still be criminalized in India, the Indian Psychiatric Society (IPS) has declared that homosexuality is not an illness. The country’s largest menta -health organizations (consisting of some 3,000 members) issued the statement this week and a new policy surrounding how to better serve the gay and lesbian community.

IPS’s president, Dr Ajit Bhide, released the news via a YouTube video in which he states: “Certain people are not cut out to be heterosexual and we don’t need to castigate them, we don’t need to punish them, to ostracize them,’ he said in the video…It is a step in the right direction…whatever your sexual orientation, whatever your sexual preference, as long as there is no other party being hurt, an individual should be allowed to practice.”

Activists hope that the announcement will have an impact on the movement to decriminalize homosexuality.