The World Health Organization approved the removal of ‘gender identity disorder’ from its global manual of diagnoses. In the past, its inclusion has acted as a justification for a wide swathe of discriminatory policies limiting the ability of transgender people to be legally recognized as their identity.
“The WHO’s removal of ‘gender identity disorder’ from its diagnostic manual will have a liberating effect on transgender people worldwide,” said Graeme Reid, LGBT+ rights director at Human Rights Watch. “Governments should swiftly reform national medical systems and laws that require this now officially outdated diagnosis.”
With this change, both major sets of diagnosis guidelines used by providers globally (the other being the American Psychiatric Association’s Diagnostic and Statistical Manual) have ended the classification of gender experiences different from those assigned at birth disorder or disease.
Read more at Human Rights Watch.