Denmark has declassified transgender from its list of mental illnesses.
The Danish Parliament has ushered in a historic victory in the struggle for transgender rights by today adopting a decision to no longer stigmatise transgender identities as mental disorders, said Amnesty International.
Leda Avgousti, Amnesty’s Sexual Orientation and Gender Identity Advisor, said,
“This very encouraging move from Denmark sets a strong example internationally towards destigmatising transgender people and paving the way for quick and transparent processes for legal gender recognition.
“It is disgraceful that globally the norm is for transgender people to be placed under the category of mental disorders because of their gender identity. This label means that transgender people are forced to undergo traumatizing and humiliating psychiatric evaluations in order to legally change their gender or even to be able to access gender reassignment treatment.”
The move positions Denmark as a frontrunner in improving transgender rights globally, as pressure is mounting on the World Health Organisation (WHO) to stop classifying transgender identity as a mental disorder in its International Classification of Disorders (ICD).
The WHO is set to revise the ICD by 2018. Removing transgender identities from this classification of mental disorders would encourage countries worldwide to do the same.
The decision in Denmark follows campaigning from Amnesty International and other human rights and lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender and intersex (LGBTI) organisations and activists.
This article was from Amnesty International. It was not paid for.
This is one of those occasions where identity politics might well have achieved a ‘victory’ that causes more harm than good. Amnesty International’s trans rights spokesperson has welcomed it because they think that this will allow trans people to access the services they need quicker and more efficiently without “traumatising and humiliating” psychological evaluations. It’s easy to understand: the parallels with LGB progress are clear: a significant milestone was reached when homosexuality was removed from the list of officially recognised WHO mental disorders.
But with sexuality, there is nothing wrong unless society imposes that externally. Gender dysphoria is different. There is something wrong that requires medical and / or surgical intervention to correct. And if gender dysphoria is not a mental illness, then what is it? This is something I would feel far more comfortable being decided by clinicians than social justice campaigners.
The amnesty spokesperson is right: our goal should be that trans people can access the medical services they need. If we remove the diagnosable illness that requires treatment, how do we facilitate that access? If we’re saying that there’s nothing wrong, then what is it we are treating? It’s laudable to want to free trans people from stigma, but why are trans people a special case? Why should stigma pertain to sufferers of mental illness, but not to trans people? What we should be doing is removing stigma from mental illness, not denying people with gender dysphoria a diagnosis and therefore access to treatment. Again, amnesty is right that trans people should be free from “traumatising and humiliating” psychiatric evaluations, but all medical interventions should be premised on the idea that they should do no harm. But just because medicine has been practised wrongly in the past is not a reason not to do it correctly in the future.