Trans, gender diverse and intersex people have been historically pathologized by psycho-medical and legal institutions. GATE is working internationally to advance depathologization, while ensuring all people’s full access to legal gender recognition, gender affirming healthcare and its coverage. We are also advocating for many human rights violations to be recognized as rooted in pathologization (e.g., ‘normalizing’ procedures on intersex infants, ‘conversion’ therapies, and other forms of torture and ill treatment in psycho-medical institutions).
We do this through:
- Partnering with trans, gender diverse and intersex movements, and with other movements focused on depathologization.
- Engaging with the World Health Organization on specific processes, including the reform of the International Classification of Diseases.
- Producing and sharing technical and political resources.
- Building critical dialogs with key stakeholders, including the World Professional Association for Transgender Health (WPATH) and the World Association for Sexual Health (WAS).
- Introducing pathologization as a key issue at the international human rights system.
- Monitoring legal depathologization at the country level and attacks against trans, gender diverse and intersex people’s rights based on so-called “gender ideology”.
Projects
- Trans depathologization
- Intersex depathologization
- Legal depathologization
Resources
Gender is not an illness
Trans people have been pathologized by psycho-medical classifications and national laws for over four decades. The UN has documented a range of violations against trans people, including, inter alia, killings, attacks, sexual assault, police violence, arbitrary detention, forced medical treatment, lack of legal gender recognition, abuses of sexual and reproductive rights, as well as discrimination in the areas of education, access to public facilities and services, employment, travel and access to justice.
Our WHO submission on intersex issues
GATE calls on WHO to amend the ICD-11 to break the link between classifications of diseases and violations of human rights. In line with statements by human rights institutions we call on WHO to combat the root causes of human rights violations. We call on WHO to consult with intersex-led organisations to ensure enjoyment by intersex people of the highest attainable standards of health and other human rights. We call on allies and donors to actively promote and support our demands.
