'Scientifically impossible': False health claims fuel LGBTQ hate in Indonesia

"LGBT is a Global Elite Agenda," reads Indonesian-language text superimposed on an Instagram video shared June 22, 2026.

The clip, which has been viewed more than 700,000 times, shows a conversation between two Indonesian social media creators.

They say that since LGBTQ people are not able to produce children, they contribute to a "global depopulation agenda" perpetrated by a supposed "global elite".

"They change sexual orientation through food, drugs and vaccines," one of the hosts says.

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Screenshot of the false post captured on July 28, 2026, with a red X added by AFP

Similar claims spread on TikTok and Facebook against the backdrop of heightened anti-LGBTQ sentiment in the world's largest Muslim nation.

Indonesia does not outlaw gay sex, except in the westernmost Aceh province, which imposes a version of the Islamic legal code sharia.

But targeted attacks are often reported in the Southeast Asian archipelago (archived link).

In late June, the top Islamic clerical body said it was preparing a manuscript for a measure criminalising LGBTQ individuals and rights advocates (archived link).

An earlier national defence policy regulation issued by President Prabowo Subianto classifies LGBTQ "culture" as a non-military threat -- alongside illegal trafficking, natural resource theft, terrorism, atheism and radicalism (archived link).

Comments to the circulating posts indicate many people believed the claim.

"I once heard that those fitness supplements contain substances that can change a person's sexual orientation," one wrote.

Another said: "Global elite depopulation methods: war/genocide, conflict, pandemic, drugs, vaccines, medical equipment, LGBT, childfree, contraceptives, free sex/condom, natural disaster."

Conspiracy theories about ploys to forcibly reduce the global population -- apparently through interventions such as vaccination -- are nothing new.

But they gained ground during the Covid-19 pandemic as countries implemented mass inoculation programmes to combat the viral disease.

AFP has repeatedly debunked baseless depopulation claims linked to vaccines -- and the posts that have surfaced recently in Indonesia are similarly false.

'Scientifically impossible'

There is "no scientific evidence" that sexual orientation can be changed by food, medications or vaccines, said Putri Widi Saraswati, a global public health practitioner based in the Netherlands (archived link).

"Sexual orientation is a complex thing which current scientific theories understand as arising from the complex interaction of multiple factors before birth," she told AFP in an email on July 23.

According to the World Health Organization, sexuality is "influenced by the interaction of biological, psychological, social, economic, political, cultural, legal, historical, religious and spiritual factors" (archived link).

It is "scientifically impossible" for vaccines to change a person's sexual orientation, personality or genetic code, said Herman Kosasih, a medical doctor who was formerly involved in dozens of infectious diseases programmes in Indonesia (archived here and here).

"The way vaccines work is by training the body's immune system to recognise and fight pathogens such as viruses and bacteria," he said on July 24.

Sean Whelan, head of the Department of Molecular Microbiology at Washington University School of Medicine in St Louis, also rejected the claim (archived link).

He added that such misinformation is "dehumanising" for LGBTQ people -- and also has a "strongly negative impact" on public health.

"Vaccines save lives and promote health," he told AFP on July 16. "As vaccines provide immunity from specific infections, they allow people to lead healthier lives."

More of our reporting on misinformation related to LGBTQ issues can be found here.