Transgender not a mental illness. United Nations confirms

Good news indeed,

It is a great day for LGBTIQ+, specially for transgender people. The World Health Organisation (WHO) is finally going to declassify transgender identity as a mental disorder, as it updates its category of mental illnesses for the first time in decades.

The body, which is the public health agency of the United Nations (UN), is considering making the change in a revised categorisation of mental and behavioural disorders to be released in 2018.

Overwhelming evidence, as well as recent studies show that gender dysphoria is a genetical condition and not a mental disorder.

For a community that is reliant on medical care, this declassification represents a great breakthrough in the way transgender patients will begin to be treated worldwide, as well as how institutions will begin to accomodate transgender people.

“It’s sending a very strong message that the rest of the world is no longer considering it a mental disorder,” clinical psychiatrist Michael First from Columbia University – who wasn’t involved with the study but is chief technical consultant on the new WHO classifications – told The New York Times.

“One of the benefits of moving it out of the mental disorder section is trying to reduce stigma.”