Samuel Obeng Badu who is also commonly known as Bro. Samuel, completed the University of Ghana with a degree in Social Work and Education. He is a hard working and dynamic leader who aims at becoming an eye of Ghana and Africa someday. He is self-motivated person and has a strong mentality to face pressure and delivers all his duties without fear or favor. He also has good debating skills. He supports the youth because he is of the conviction that a lot of ideas have been gathered by the youth and when giving the chance they can man a meaningful impact in our society.
We asked Bro. Samuel what he also think or wish to write about this LGBTQ+ issues and he said,
If you critically take a look at the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders, the Fifth edition. DSM-5
It makes you understand or state clearly that if a guy want to have sex with his fellow guy, it is Madness. On the other way round, if lady also decides to have any sexual activity with her fellow lady, it is also Madness.
Before I even move on with my point of view on the reason why this nasty act should not be entertain here in Ghana, this is what a document that was published by Ray Levy Uyeda in May 2021 states.
Nearly 50 years ago, LGBTQ+ activists achieved what was called the “greatest gay victory” of the time: successfully pushing members of the American Psychiatric Association (APA) to remove the diagnosis of homosexuality from the official classification of mental illnesses, the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (DSM).
By citing homosexuality as a mental illness, the APA and its members stigmatized LGBTQ+ people, and non-normative sexualities and gender expressions. Declassification, as the years-long effort was known, culminated in 1973, when in May, LGBTQ+ voices were heard at the annual APA conference, and later the APA Board of Trustees voted to remove homosexuality from the DSM. The change signaled to the country that there was not an inherent link between mental illness and homosexuality.
For queer people growing into their adulthood, it can be difficult to understand just how much progress has been made toward sociocultural acceptance of LGBTQ+ people. The classification of mental illness was born from the legacy of multiple systems of power: the American legal system criminalized homosexual behavior; federal and state governments had not yet codified protections for queer and trans people seeking employment and housing; and an insistence on heteronormative gender roles stigmatized anyone who deviated from their role as a “woman” or a “man.”
To be continued...
