LIMA: Peru announced on Tuesday (June 25) that it will stop classifying transgender identities as a “mental disorder,” an outdated term long abandoned by the World Health Organization and which had sparked angry protests.
The Health Ministry said transgender people will instead be described as “gender nonconforming” to ensure universal access to mental health treatment.
The move came after the government last month updated its list of insurable health conditions, which since 2021 has offered benefits for mental health treatment, to include services for transgender people.
In that decree, the Ministry of Health described transgender people – those who reject the sex assigned to them at birth – as people with a “mental disorder.”
Hundreds of people protested the measure in front of the Ministry of Health on May 17, the International Day against Homophobia, Transphobia and Biphobia.
“We demand the repeal of this transphobic and violent decree, which attacks our trans identities in Peru,” activist Gianna Camacho, from the National LGTBIQ+ Coordination, told AFP during the protest.
“We are not mentally ill nor do we suffer from any mental disorder,” he added.
Human Rights Watch also called the decree “deeply regressive” in a country that does not allow same-sex marriage or transgender people to change their identity documents.
