FINDING ANSWERS

RA 7277, officially known as the Magna Carta for Disabled Persons, became law in 1992 during my first term as senator.
The law we crafted to improve the total well-being of Persons with Disability (PWD) defined disability as “a physical or mental impairment that substantially limits one or more psychological, physiological or anatomical function of an individual or activities of such individual.”
Other terms in the law are defined as follows: “Disabled persons are those suffering from restriction of different abilities, as a result of a mental, physical or sensory impairment, to perform an activity in the manner or within the range considered normal for a human being; Impairment is any loss, diminution or aberration of psychological, physiological, or anatomical structure of function.”
The PWD law and its definition of terms comes to mind amid the recent controversy sparked by inclusion of LGBTQ in the priority lane of the Land Transportation Office (LTO). A photo that went viral on social media showed a LTO transaction window on which was posted a priority list: 1. Senior Citizen, 2. Pregnant Woman, 3. Person with Disability, and 4. LGBTQ.
A LTO spokesperson explained that the sector of Lesbians, Gay, Bisexual, Transgender and Queer (LGBTQ) was included in the priority lane “just to make sense and elevate the confidence of that sector which has been, until now, discriminated and ostracized, thus we are fostering the understanding and acceptance of the members of the LGBTQ as equal.”
The advocacy group Bahaghari that champions LGBTQ rights said that while the LTO had a “well-meaning” intent, the gesture is misguided and could have a “misleading implication” that being part of the LGBTQ community is an impairment.
“We want to make it clear – being an LGBTQ+ in no way impairs or affects a person in a physical capacity to take part in crucial governmental functions,” Bahaghari chairperson Reyna Valmores said in a published report.
Bahaghari’s stand is certainly understandable. It is obvious that seniors, pregnant women, and PWDs are physically impaired from performing activities in a normal manner as most people can. To include the LGBTQ among a list of impaired people, even without obvious physical infirmities, would beg the question: What’s the impairment?
Such question would logically lead to the meaning of impairment as defined in RA 7277. If it is not physiological, could the impairment then be classified as psychological?  Is being an LGBTQ a mental disorder?
But to think that homosexuality is a form of mental illness is passé. Psychiatrists declassified it as a mental disorder in 1973 with the removal of homosexuality from the second edition of the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders, according to the American Psychiatric Association.
Psychoanalysts did the same around 20 years later. In fact, the American Psychoanalytic Association (APsaA) has issued an apology for previously treating homosexuality as a mental illness. “It is long past time to recognize and apologize for our role in the discrimination and trauma caused by our profession and say, 'We are sorry,'” according to a statement by APsaA president Dr. Lee Jaffe issued in June 2019.
But a study titled “Prejudice, Social Stress, and Mental Health in Lesbian, Gay, and Bisexual Populations: Conceptual Issues and Research Evidence” posted in the US-based National Library of Medicine “shows that lesbians, gay men, and bisexuals (LGBs) have a higher prevalence of mental disorders than heterosexuals.”
The study explained that “stigma, prejudice, and discrimination create a hostile and stressful social environment that causes mental health problems” for LGBs. But prevalence of mental disorders is not the same as saying that being LGB is an outright mental disorder.
“In a society like ours where homosexuals are uniformly treated with disparagement or contempt – to say nothing about outright hostility — it would be surprising indeed if substantial numbers of them did not suffer from an impaired self-image and some degree of unhappiness with their stigmatized status… It is manifestly unwarranted and inaccurate, however, to attribute such neuroticism, when it exists, to intrinsic aspects of homosexuality itself,” according to a debate discussion included in the study.
Thus, based on such discussion, it is not surprising if the LTO priority lane policy, despite its good intention, could instead be harmful as it might lead to an “impaired self-image.” Email: [[email protected]](mailto:[email protected])