« Being transgender is not an illness, and it is time that medical standards around the world reflect that », said the Council of Europe Parliamentary Assembly’s (PACE) General Rapporteur on the rights of LGBT people Jonas Gunnarsson (Sweden, SOC), in view of the International Day of Action for Trans Depathologisation (24 October).
« Unfortunately, there is still a very long way to go in combating discrimination against transgender people, in Europe and beyond,” he observed. “One simple step that can be taken to better respect their human dignity is to amend national and international classifications of diseases so as to ensure that transgender people, including children, are not labelled as mentally ill ».
« I urge Council of Europe member States to take the lead in making this change at home and advocating it at international level, in line with the Assembly’s groundbreaking Resolution 2048 (2015) on Discrimination against transgender people in Europe », he concluded.
