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NEW DELHI: With a constitution bench of the Supreme Court set to hear a petition challenging criminalising homosexuality on Tuesday, the Indian Psychiatry Society (IPS) said homosexuality was not a psychiatric disorder.

Coming out in support of decriminalising homosexuality, the IPS said in a statement on Saturday that it recognised “same- sex sexuality as a normal variant of human sexuality much like heterosexuality and bisexuality”.

“There is no scientific evidence that sexual orientation can be altered by any treatment and any such attempts may, in fact, lead to low self-esteem and stigmatisation of the person,” the society added.

The IPS had, in 2017, constituted a task force on lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender issues. The task force, now partially re-constituted, continues its work to endorse the stance that homosexuality “should not be considered a mental illness, much less a crime”.

It also said its position was in line with that of the American Psychiatric Association and the International Classification of Diseases of the World Health Organisation which removed homosexuality from the list of psychiatric disorders in 1973 and 1992 respectively.

In 2009, the Delhi High Court had decriminalised Section 377, an order that was set aside by the SC in 2013. In January, the apex court said it would revisit the constitutional validity of Section 377 and referred the matter to a constitution bench. The constitution bench will comprise CJI Dipak Misra and Justices R F Nariman, A M Khanwilkar, D Y Chandrachud and Indu Malhotra.

