The World Health Organization is no longer classifying transgender people as mentally ill. WHO announced Monday in its 11th ICD catalog that gender incongruence, the term for people whose gender identity is different from the gender they were assigned at birth, has been moved out of the mental disorders chapter and into the sexual health chapter. This is a major step for the LGTBQ community in terms of moving towards acceptance by non LGTBQ people. This change will be shared at the World Health Assembly in 2019, and will go into effect in 2022. The coordinator of WHO's Adolescents at risk and at-risk populations team stated "It was taken out from the mental health disorders because we had a better understanding that this wasn't actually a mental health condition and leaving it there was causing stigma...so in order to reduce the stigma while also ensuring access to necessary health interventions, this was placed in a different chapter." [1 image, 1 link, 1 quote, 158 words]
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