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Major Development in France
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LGBT History Month UK, UK
Wednesday, February 17, 2010
France strikes transexualism from list of mental illnesses
France has become the first country in the world to remove gender
identity disorder, also known as transexualism, from its list of
officially recognised mental illnesses. This is huge news but seems
yet to have been picked up by English language news sources.
The news was reported
in the French national daily Le Figaro and by the AFP newswire in
French and English, so my details are from the Spanish language report
(e.g. this report
in Colombian national El Tiempo).
My translation of an excerpt from the Spanish-language AFP newswire report:
The Minister of Health, Roselyne Bachelot, had announced on 16th May
2009, before the International Day Against Homophobia and Transphobia,
that transexualism would not be not considered a psychiatric disorder
in France.
On that occasion, numerous personalities from the world of politics
and science had signed an article that appeared in the press to
petition the World Health Organisation to stop "considering
transexuals as affected by mental illness".
"France is the first country in the world that does not consider
transexualism as a mental illness" said Jo?l Bedos, French
representative of IDAHO (International Day Against Homophobia and
Transphobia), to AFP on Friday. "It's historic", added Philippe Caste,
spokesperson for the 'Interasociativa lesbiana, gay, bi y trans'. "It
was something very important and was greatly anticipated since the
promise was made" added Roselyne Bachelot.
This move will likely be widely supported by the transgender
community. However, the prospect of the diagnoses being removed in all
countries might be a double-edge sword for some. Although the fact
that being diagnosed as mentally ill is a requirement to obtain
sex-reassignment in some places has been resented, the removal of the
diagnosis could raise fears that the procedure may become less
accessible.
Simply being transgendered or having trangender desires itself does
not currently qualify for the diagnoses, as it requires significant
psychological distress to also be present. However, campaigners argue
that this distress is largely caused by discrimination and stigma, to
which the diagnosis contributes.
The move by France, however, does not de-list the diagnoses from the
World Health Organisation's ICD-10 classification or the American
Psychiatric Association's DSM and, in fact, the draft DSM-V only
slightly modifies the criteria for the diagnoses in children
and adults
although does rename it 'gender incongruence'.
Nevertheless, this will put pressure on both the World Health
Organisation and the American Psychiatric Association to remove the
diagnoses which have a long-standing target of criticism from the LGBT
community.
Original article
on Mind Hacks
Posted by Ed. at 08:48
Labels: Press, Trans
http://lgbthmuk.blogspot.com/2010/02/france-strikes-transexualism-from-list.html
Categories: TG News Around the US
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