The Peruvian government has classified trans identity and other “gender identity disorders” as mental illnesses in a new update to the country’s Essential Health Insurance Plan, sparking outrage among LGBTQ+ groups.
The classification was announced in a presidential decree published May 10, officially naming “transsexualism,” “dual role transvestism,” “gender identity disorder,” and “ego-dystonic sexual orientation” as insurable mental health problems. Much of this psychiatric language, is considered outdated and has since been removed from the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders. “Gender identity disorder,” for example, was replaced with “gender dysphoria” in 2013. Many of these diagnoses have also been used to pathologize queerness and to legitimize so-called “conversion therapy.”
Government officials in Peru have maintained that the classification is meant to facilitate insurance coverage. The Ministry of Health released a statement on X on May 11, reiterating that “gender and sexual diversity are not diseases,” and that LGBTQ+ people “should not be subjected to medical treatment or care or so-called conversion therapies.”
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An official with the Ministry of Health additionally told the newspaper El Comercio that the diagnoses were meant to facilitate coverage for “transsexual people and people with gender identity disorders.”
But LGBTQ+ activist groups in Peru have harshly criticized the decree, including the feminist NGO Promsex, which posted a statement to X expressing “deep concern and rejection” of the document.
“With this measure, the Ministry of Health legitimizes discriminatory practices such as conversion therapies, violence and stigmas towards LGBTl people,” the statement reads. “For these reasons, we demand that the State rectify the Supreme Decree to eliminate the pathologization of sexual and gender diversity.”
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The LGBTQ+ organization Más Igualdad Perú also released a statement to X, calling the decree an “outdated document with pathologizing information about LGBTIQ+ identities, especially trans people.”
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The organization also pointed out that May 17 is the International Day Against Homophobia, Biphobia, and Transphobia (IDAHOBIT), which marks the day in 1990 that the World Health Organization declassified homosexuality as a disorder.
“It took 28 years to eliminate trans identities from the same category, let's not go back another day,” the organization wrote.
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