Disclaimer: This article is based on actual news from the real world – honestly! However, it has been sprinkled with a healthy dose of satire.
KUALA LUMPUR — The Malaysian government has determined that work-related stress may cause people to become gay, a finding the Religious Affairs Ministry announced this week. This announcement came despite the Religious Affairs Ministry admitting it has no actual data on the specific issue of becoming gay, yet somehow has plenty of data on arrests for being gay.
"I can feel the stress making me gay… and why have all my books been turned around?" (Tverdohlib.com/depositphotos)
Minister Zulkifli Hasan delivered the assessment in a written parliamentary reply on Tuesday, citing a 2017 study that reportedly links workplace pressure to “involvement in the LGBT lifestyle.” The study, attributed to the research team “Sulaiman et al.,” could not be independently located, which officials say only proves how thoroughly peer-reviewed it must be.
“Social influence, sexual experiences, work stress, and lack of religious observance all contribute,” Zulkifli wrote, in what appears to be the world’s first attempt to explain homosexuality using a performance review. He did not elaborate on which quarterly deadlines push workers toward bisexuality, or whether middle management was statistically gayer than senior leadership.
The minister was responding to opposition MP Siti Zailah Mohd Yusoff, who had requested a demographic breakdown of Malaysia’s LGBT population by age and ethnicity. Zulkifli replied that no such data exists, though he did note that 135 people were arrested for LGBT-related offenses between 2022 and 2025. It remains unclear how authorities identified these individuals without statistics, though the Religious Affairs Ministry insists the math works and to trust the process.
Malaysians responded to the announcement with predictable enthusiasm. “I’m genuinely shocked my entire office isn’t gay by now,” one commenter wrote on social media. Others suggested the theory finally laid to rest concerns about secret homosexuals in parliament “because they never work hard enough.”
The country’s civil and syariah courts maintain overlapping jurisdiction on homosexuality, with penalties including imprisonment, fines, and caning. Authorities describe the overlapping legal systems as “efficient,” much in the same way as two people simultaneously steering a car is efficient.
Following the backlash, Zulkifli urged the public not to “draw conclusions from headlines alone,” asking instead that citizens read his full parliamentary reply. He did not specify which parts of the full reply made workplace stress causing homosexuality sound more reasonable.
At press time, a PAS lawmaker had proposed adding anti-LGBT curriculum to schools nationwide, arguing that children must be taught that homosexuality is immoral before they reach the workforce and accidentally become gay from answering too many emails.
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