• Home
  • News
  • Longform
  • Life
    • Jeans
    • Madam Zeenat’s Feminist Tarot
  • Health
  • Work
  • Culture
    • Books
    • Art
    • Music
    • Fashion
    • Cinema
    • TV
  • Sports
  • Kranti
  • Vaanthi
  • The FAK
  • About
    • Submissions
  • Home
  • News
  • Longform
  • Life
    • Jeans
    • Madam Zeenat’s Feminist Tarot
  • Health
  • Work
  • Culture
    • Books
    • Art
    • Music
    • Fashion
    • Cinema
    • TV
  • Sports
  • Kranti
  • Vaanthi
  • The FAK
  • About
    • Submissions
HomeNewsWHO Plans to Stop Considering Transgender Identity ...

WHO Plans to Stop Considering Transgender Identity a ‘Mental Disorder’

August 3, 2016

By Amla Pisharody

FHI BANGLADESH
Hijras in Bangladesh. Photo by USAID.

For decades, the World Health Organisation has listed “Transgender identity” as a mental disorder, included in the International Classification of Diseases (ICD) codebook. The new ICD-11, though, might declassify “transgender identity” as a mental disorder based on the findings of a study published in the Lancet Psychiatry Journal, written by researchers at the Mexican National Institute of Psychiatry. It will be reclassified under ‘Conditions Related to Sexual Health.’

“Stigma associated with both mental disorder and transgender identity has contributed to the precarious legal status, human rights violations, and barriers to appropriate care among transgender people,” said Geoffry Reed, co-author of the study, in a public release. “The definition of transgender identity as a mental disorder has been misused to justify denial of health care and contributed to the perception that transgender people must be treated by psychiatric specialists, creating barriers to health care services,” he added.

The study involved interviewing 250 trans people in 2014, in Mexico City. They were asked about their childhood, their gender identities, and what reactions they had got for identifying as trans from their work places, schools, and families. One of the factors that determine psychiatric disorder is “distress and dysfunction”. The study, however, found that the major cause for distress in the case of trans folk was not gender identity itself, but social rejection, family relationship problems, and stigmatisation. Seventy-six percent of the participants of the study reported that they faced social rejection, and 63 percent said they had been victims of violence because of their trans identity. “Our findings support the idea that distress and dysfunction may be the result of stigmatization and maltreatment, rather than integral aspects of transgender identity” said Rebecca Robles, the lead author of the study, in a statement.

Instead of being removed from the ICD, the term is being reclassified so that it will improve trans folk’s access to health care.

“I am glad they [WHO] have done this finally,” said Anjali Gopalan from the Naz Foundation in Delhi to Scroll.in. “If you do not consider homosexuality a disease, why consider transgender identity one? It [the study] also clearly states that the problem is from external sources, and not from within.”

The study is now being conducted in Brazil, India, Lebanon, and South Africa, before the ICD revision that comes out in 2018. In India, the study will be replicated at the All India Institute of Medical Sciences, Delhi, but only with the hijra community (only male-to-female transgender individuals).

 

Tags: gender, identity, mental illness, stigma, transgender, WHO

Share!
Tweet

ladiesfinger

About the author

Related Posts

In What World Is Trupti Desai the Biggest Problem in the Sabarimala Mess? A Nice Delusional World

Gender Jalebi is a podcast for when gender is making you go round and round

It’s Independence Day and You Want My Son to Be an Aman ki Asha Project? Too Bad

What I Learnt from Karaikal Ammaiyar and Her Closet of Adornments

Leave a Reply Cancel reply

Trending

Sorry. No data so far.

Subscribe to our email newsletter!

You May Also Like

  • After Payal Tadvi’s Death Can We Allow Medical Education to Continue to Pretend to be Casteless? May 28, 2019
  • Jokha Alharthi’s Man Booker Win Reminds Us of Oman’s Recent Slave-owning Past May 24, 2019
  • In Avengers: Endgame, Black Widow is Sexy, Sterile and So Burnt By Marvel May 12, 2019
  • Let Us Admit the Sins of Atishi Marlena May 10, 2019
  • 20 Questions for SC Panel that Cleared the CJI of Sexual Harassment Charges May 9, 2019


Online Bachchi, Dil Ki Sachchi

Come on over for feminist journalism.

Politics. Pop Culture. Health. Sex. Law. Books. Work.

We write what we want to read.

  • Terms & Conditions
  • Privacy Policy
  • Refund Policy
  • About
  • Contact Us

Subscribe to our email newsletter!

Keep up with us!

Follow Us on FacebookFollow Us on TwitterFollow Us on YouTubeFollow Us on E-mail

Trending

Sorry. No data so far.

Copyright © 2018 The Ladies Finger
Subscribe to our RSS/Atom feed here