Amid criticism, medical panel scraps curriculum guidelines labelling lesbianism as ‘sexual offence’

The National Medical Commission on Thursday withdrew the 2024 Competency Based Medical Education Curriculum Guidelines published in August, amid criticism that the document was regressive.

The guidelines will be revised and uploaded again, the panel said.

The revised forensic medicine curriculum published on August 31 had reintroduced “sodomy and lesbianism” under the unnatural sexual offences category.

The curriculum had also brought back topics such as the medico-legal importance of the hymen, the definition of “virginity, defloration, legitimacy and its medico legal importance”.

These topics had been removed in 2022 as part of an exercise to do away with portions considered regressive and to make the guidelines LGBTQ+ friendly. The topics were removed based on the recommendation of an expert committee constituted by the Madras High Court, The Indian Express reported.

Disability rights activists had criticised the new curriculum, pointing out that the seven-hour training on disability for students had been scrapped. The topic was also not included in the ethics module.

The activists had said that this violated the Rights of Persons with Disabilities Act, which calls for including disability in the educational curriculum.
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