Transgenderism, according to the revised International Classification of Diseases of the World Health Organization (WHO), is no longer on the list of mental disorders. Former diagnosis F.64 - transsexuality and other diagnoses related to trans identities, was changed to the diagnosis "gender incongruence" and transferred to the domain of reproductive and sexual health.
Such categorization, as John M. Barac, executive director of the LGBT Forum Progress, said, means that transgender people will no longer be considered mentally ill.
"The emphasis will be placed on their gender identity, that is, the mismatch that exists between their personality and the physical gender they were born with," he told "Vijesta".
A change in the classification related to trans persons followed for the first time after 1992.
"Over 25 years of tireless advocacy by trans activists and the trans community and insisting on the fact that our identity does not represent a mental disorder," said Jovan Ulićević, executive director of the "Spektra" association.
According to him, such a decision by the WHO means the beginning of the end of the stigmatization of trans people.
"Conversion therapies, forced medicalization, but also sterilization, end with this act, and states will be obliged to be guided by the new classification, in order to provide adequate health care that follows the highest standards and respects the rights of patients," Ulićević told "Vijesta".
The executive director of "Spektra", which brings together trans, intersex and gender-variant people in Montenegro, believes that in the coming period, according to the new classification, the state will provide legal recognition of gender without forced sterilization and medical interventions that can lead to it.
Like other countries, Montenegro will also have to adapt to the new classification.
"Regarding the erasure of 'gender incongruence in children and adolescents', precisely because of the unnecessaryness of any form of pathologization of children and categorization of their gender identity and expression through the prism of any form of pathology. Furthermore, despite the efforts of intersex activists, the new classification still includes 'disorders of sexual development', i.e. all variations of sex characteristics that signify intersex. Such classification continues to lead to the implementation of unnecessary medical interventions that are also performed in KCCG, and are not medically induced, but have the aim of fitting intersex children into gender stereotypes and social norms, through adapting the body, especially the genitalia of intersex newborns to the appearance of "typically male or female" bodies', which brings with it numerous health risks, difficulties and traumas", said Ulićević.
Until the announced norms are applied, say activists for the rights of LGBTIQ persons, several more years of hard work will pass.
The WHO will send the revised document to its members for voting and adoption in May 2019, and its implementation is expected only from January 2022.
"Until then, at the national and international level, we are expected to prepare the ground for the practical application of such norms and standards," explains Barac.
At the national level, he adds, this means that by 2022, a climate of "complete depathologization of trans identity" must be created.
It will also be necessary to prepare the ground for an adequate reform of the existing legislative framework, as well as the possible adoption of new legal solutions.
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