Gender is not an illness

Press Release: Gender is not an illness

Today, GATE is very proud to release the publication Gender is not an illness. How pathologization violates human rights law. This paper was conceived and produced as a contribution to the ongoing process of depathologizing trans and gender diverse people through the reform of classification systems, legal frameworks and social attitudes. This publication was authored by Sheherezade Kara, with the contribution of an international group of experts: Amets Suess-Shwend, Cianán B. Russell, Viviane Vergueiro, Eleonora Lamm, Eszter Kismodi and Mauro Cabral Grinspan.

Pathologization appears to be a new concept in the human rights field; however, it describes the lived experiences of many trans and gender diverse people around the world over the last several decades. t conveys and executes a naturalized distinction between acceptable and unacceptable ways of being in the world – namely, “healthy” and “pathological”. Historically, those of us who identify ourselves in a gender different to the sex assigned to us at birth have faced stigma, discrimination and violence because being ourselves was considered to be, in itself, a pathology. Sadly, this history remains our shared present.

Pathologization has also been consistently used to deny, restrict and condition trans and gender diverse people’s access to very basic rights, including legal gender recognition, gender-affirming healthcare, and its coverage. Read more via GATE

The publicatio can be downloaded from here, or you can read more about this report here.