World Health Organization: Transsexualism should no longer be a mental illness

Those who do not feel attached to the gender associated with birth are transsexual – and, according to the World Health Organization, mentally ill. This is going to change soon.

World Health Organization: Transsexualism should no longer be a mental illness

The World Health Organization (WHO) wants to remove transsexuality from list of mental illnesses. "We believe that this will reduce stigma and increase social acceptance of se people," said Lale say, WHO coordinator for reproductive health. On Monday, UN organization had submitted its revised diseases catalogue, in short ICD-11, with 55,000 diseases, injuries and causes of death.

In it, who transsexualism no longer listed under "mental, behavioural and developmental disorders", but in a new chapter on sexual health. It defines "gender-incongruity" as "a clear and persistent lack of correspondence between experienced and assigned sex".

The new catalogue must still be approved by UN member States. It will be presented to you in May 2019 and could enter into force on 1 January 2022. Say reckons with a country's approval, although transsexual are discriminated against worldwide.

The WHO representative also said that deletion of list of mental illnesses could facilitate access to health care for those affected. Doctors and health insurance companies finally used catalogue, she said.

In recent revision of WHO catalogue, video game addiction is also recognized as a disease. For first time, WHO also expanded its catalogue to include a chapter on traditional medicine that millions of people worldwide use. The catalogue was last revised in 1990s.

Date Of Update: 20 June 2018, 12:02