The World Health Organization (WHO) announced this week that it will no longer consider being transgender a mental illness, a move that it hopes will combat stigma.

Previously, the WHO had coded "gender incongruence" (better known as gender dysphoria) as a mental illness in the International Classification of Diseases (ICD) catalog. It's now listed under a newly created chapter on sexual health conditions.

Gender dysphoria happens when there's a conflict between the sex a person is assigned at birth and how they actually experience gender.



The ICD is a hugely influential document that's used for guidance by health agencies around the world. It sets the standard for the classification of diseases and affects everything from health budgets to where research dollars are spent.

The hope, according to the WHO, is that this move will help combat stigma and discrimination faced by transgender people.

"It was taken out of mental health disorders because we had better understanding that this wasn't actually a mental health condition and leaving it there was causing stigma," said Dr. Lale Say, the coordinator of the WHO's Department of Reproductive Health and Research, in a video posted on YouTube.

