A homophobic Kuwaiti academic claimed on Scope TV in March that she invented a cure for homosexuality based on Islamic medicine. “I discovered therapeutic suppositories that curb the sexual urges of boys of the third gender as well as the fourth gender, which is butch lesbians. They have excessive sexual urges,” said the anti-gay and anti-lesbian researcher Dr. Mariam Al-Sohel. The Scope TV station, based in Kuwait City, broadcast in the interview that the cure is based on “prophetic medicine.” Al-Sohel claimed, “This is science, and there is nothing to be ashamed of,” and “the sexual urge develops when a person is sexually attacked, and afterward it persists because there is an anal worm that feeds on semen.” Al-Sohel said her inventions of suppositories “cures those urges by exterminating the worm that feeds on the semen.” She added, “Bitter foods increase masculinity” and “the ingredients [for the cure] are the same (for both sexes) but I made them into different colors.” The Kuwaiti emirate criminalizes homosexuality under its “debauchery” law. Cross-dressing is also illegal in the Gulf state. Kuwait’s anti-gay law means homosexuals could face lengthy prison sentences.