Malaysia’s religious affairs minister has been the subject of widespread ridicule on social media this week for claiming that workplace stress can turn people gay.

As multiple local outlets report, Zulkifli Hasan, Malaysia’s Minister in the Prime Minister’s Department (Religious Affairs) made the bizarre statement in a written reply to a lawmaker from the Southeast Asian nation’s opposition Islamist party.

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According to the Hindustan Times, Siti Zailah Mohd Yusoff had requested the latest data and statistics on LGBTQ+ related trends in the majority-Muslim country, where homosexuality is criminalized under colonial-era law.

In his response, Zulkifli reportedly stated, “Comprehensive data on the number of LGBT people in Malaysia remains limited.”

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But he also reportedly cited a 2017 study, which, according to Zulkifli, claimed that factors including social influences, sexual experiences, work-related stress, and other personal circumstances “may contribute to the development of LGBT-related behavior.”

As Them and other outlets note, Zulkifli’s comments were greeted with ridicule on Malaysian social media, where users joked that the country’s parliament must not work particularly hard and that Zulkifli’s workload should be increased as a test case for his own claims.

In a statement to the South China Morning Post, Thilaga Sulathireh, a member of the LGBTQ+ rights group Justice For Sisters, blasted Zulkifli for spreading misinformation, which she said “reinforces the assumption that LGBT people’s sexual orientation and gender identity can be corrected, changed, or are not real or as valid as cisgender heterosexual identities.”

“The fact is diversity in sexual orientation, gender identity, gender expression, and sex characteristics is completely natural and normal,” Sulathireh said. “This has been proven by medical and other bodies. The minister must retract and correct the misinformation.”

In response to the backlash, Zulkifli issued a statement claiming that his remarks had been taken out of context.

“I invite everyone, including members of parliament and the public, to honestly refer to and examine the full written answer provided in Parliament,” he said, according to the New Straits Times, adding that his department “rejects the normalization of LGBT as it contradicts religion, morals, and social values.”

Zulkifli’s claims come in the wake of several recent high-profile raids on alleged gay events and businesses in Malaysia last year, part of a broader government crackdown targeting LGBTQ+ individuals, groups, businesses, and gatherings that “promote” homosexuality.

In July, police in Kelantan arrested 12 men during a raid on a “gay party,” following 20 similar arrests in June.

In late November, Malaysian authorities raided an alleged “gay spa” in the capital city of Kuala Lumpur, arresting more than 200 people — none of whom were reportedly convicted of anything. A similar raid took place 24 hours later at a sauna in Penang, just south of the country’s border with Thailand.

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