The UN is finally going to declassify transgender as a mental illness

The World Health Organisation (WHO) is moving 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.

News of the change comes just as a new study published in The Lancet Psychiatry this week advocates that transgender identity should not be diagnosed as a mental disorder.

“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,” says lead researcher Geoffrey Reed from the National Autonomous University of Mexico.