The World Health Organization will no longer classify Transgender health issues as some sort of mental or behavioral disorder. The change was implemented in the latest global manual of diagnosis.
WHO however placed issues of Gender incongruence otherwise known as Gender dysphoria as a separate chapter on sexual health in its updated manual called ICD-11. Gender incongruence is a strong desire to be treated as another gender than one’s naturally assigned gender.
The previous version ICD-10 considered Transgender as a gender identity disorder, under the chapter entitled mental and behavioral disorders.
All that has changed now.
Human Rights activists are elated that WHO now clearly states that Transgender is “not actually a mental health condition”.
The WHO also urges governments worldwide to “reform national medical systems and laws” that are in place right now to treat Transgender as a disease. All of that has been deemed as “outdated diagnosis”.
This decision definitely brings out a silent celebration among the Transgender community who can now accept who they are without any fear or doubt. However, how freely we can have sensible conversations regarding this issue, is still under question.