Fact-check: Sunna.az's medical claims about homosexuality have no scientific basis

An article published on Sunna.az titled "An Islamic Solution to the LGBT Problem" presents homosexuality as an illness, a "perversion," and a condition requiring "treatment." While the religious-theological position put forward in the piece belongs to a different plane of interpretation, the medical and statistical claims voiced in the text can be checked — and when held up against the facts, these claims turn out to be unfounded.

Claim: Homosexuality is the "main cause" of AIDS, once called "gay cancer"

This repeats the earliest characterization of the HIV epidemic from the early 1980s, based on the limited information available at the time. Modern global statistics do not support it: according to the Joint United Nations Programme on HIV/AIDS (UNAIDS), 41 million people worldwide were living with HIV in 2025, and more than half of them live in Eastern and Southern Africa. In these regions, the virus's primary route of transmission is heterosexual contact. HIV transmission is linked not to sexual orientation but to specific behaviors — unprotected sex, needle-sharing, and other identifiable practices. The World Health Organization (WHO) likewise does not classify HIV as a "gay disease."

Azerbaijan's own official source confirms this point as well. In an interview published on aids.az this past February, Günel Babayeva, Head of the Monitoring and Evaluation Department at the Ministry of Health's Republican AIDS Control Center, made no reference whatsoever to sexual orientation when explaining the sources and routes of HIV transmission. She explained the spread of the infection solely through specific medical-biological mechanisms — contact with blood, unprotected sex, mother-to-child transmission, and non-sterile medical equipment. According to the Center, a total of 11,554 people were officially registered in Azerbaijan between 1987 and 2025, and the country has one of the lowest HIV prevalence rates in the Eastern Europe–Central Asia region. This outcome is explained not by "immorality," as the article claims, but by antiretroviral treatment programs, PrEP/PEP prevention, early diagnosis, and awareness campaigns.

The most direct refutation, however, comes from the Center's own published statistics. According to data released as part of a 2025 training program run by the Republican AIDS Control Center with support from the Global Fund, 59.9% of registered HIV transmission cases in Azerbaijan occurred through heterosexual contact, 28.8% through injection drug use, and only 6.3% through homosexual contact (the remainder consists of cases of unknown origin, mother-to-child transmission, and donor blood). In other words, according to Azerbaijan's own official figures, the majority of infections stem from heterosexual contact — a direct refutation of the "gay cancer" claim at the level of local statistics.

In its analysis of this statement, Minority Azerbaijan also flags an important nuance. Although the Ministry's statement repeatedly uses the term "risk groups," it does not specify who exactly makes up these groups. On one hand, this may shield the queer community from the risk of stigmatization; on the other, it can make it harder for prevention messaging to reach queer people directly and clearly. In any case, the fact that even the official document itself does not present HIV as a "gay disease" further shows that Sunna.az's claim aligns with neither the international nor the local official position.

Claim: Homosexuality is "contrary to human nature" and is a medically abnormal condition

In 1990, the World Health Assembly removed homosexuality from the International Classification of Diseases (ICD). The current ICD-10 and ICD-11 classifications state directly that "sexual orientation by itself is not to be regarded as a disorder." In other words, the international medical community has not recognized homosexuality as an illness for more than 35 years now.

This is not only the international position but Azerbaijan's own official one as well. A statement from the Ministry of Health of the Republic of Azerbaijan's Mental Health Center states directly that homosexuality was removed from the ICD-10 by the WHO in 1994, and that because Azerbaijan has used the ICD-10 as its sole classification system since 2005, homosexuality cannot be recorded by a physician in the country as a mental disorder. The Center also emphasized that, since no diagnosis called "homosexuality" exists, it is unacceptable for doctors to prescribe treatment on this basis or to claim they can "eliminate" it.

Claim: Sexual orientation can be changed through marriage or "exercising willpower"

This claim forms the basis of the practice known as "conversion therapy." A large-scale study conducted by the American Psychological Association (APA) in 2009, since corroborated by further research, found that efforts aimed at changing sexual orientation have no scientific effectiveness whatsoever and instead increase the risk of depression, anxiety, and suicide. In a report submitted to the Human Rights Council in 2020, the UN Independent Expert on protection against violence and discrimination based on sexual orientation and gender identity classified these practices as amounting to torture and cruel treatment, and called on states to ban them.

Local expert opinion confirms this as well. Responding to an inquiry from the Minority Azerbaijan team, Dr. Röya Məmmədova, a psychotherapist and Head of the Psychosocial Rehabilitation Department at the Mental Health Center, stated: "Under Article 4 of the Law of the Republic of Azerbaijan on Psychological Assistance, psychotherapy means the treatment of mental disorders. Homosexuality, however, has not been considered a mental illness under the DSM classification since 1973. This means that, since homosexuality is not a mental disorder, it cannot be 'treated' through psychotherapy." In other words, neither Azerbaijan's legislation nor its official medical institutions support the notion, put forward in the article, that orientation can be changed through "marriage" or "willpower."

Claim: Azerbaijan's tolerance rating toward the LGBTQI+ community (2%) is a "good result" compared to other countries

The article does not cite the specific survey it draws this figure from, so the number itself can be neither confirmed nor refuted. Existing international indicators, however, paint a different picture. In ILGA-Europe's 2025 ranking, Azerbaijan placed 48th out of 49 European countries in terms of legal protections for LGBTQI+ people. This indicator gives grounds to view a low tolerance rate not as a "success" but as a serious risk of discrimination.

Claim: Western countries are "propagating" LGBTQI+ tolerance in the East in order to "preserve their economic dominance"

This is a claim advanced without any documentable source, without naming any specific organization, document, or financial mechanism. The international human rights framework (the UN Human Rights Council, the WHO, and other bodies) frames LGBTQI+ rights not as a tool of economic interest but as a matter of human rights.

The religious-theological position taken in the Sunna.az piece belongs to a different plane of interpretation and is not the subject of this fact-check. But the great majority of the medical, statistical, and conspiratorial claims used in the text to support that position, that HIV is a "gay disease," that homosexuality is a medical pathology, that "conversion" is effective, and that the West harbors a hidden economic agenda contradict current scientific consensus and international statistics.

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