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On June 18 2018, the World Health Organization published the new International Classification of Diseases in its 11th version, which will be presented for final approval to the World Health Assembly in 2019. It is the first time since 1992 that the ICD has been reviewed. On positive note trans identities where finally removed from the mental health chapter. However, despite intersex experts working with WHO in the process, people with variations of sex characteristics are being pathologized and called disordered.

“OII Europe welcomes the positives changes that the ICD-11 makes in regards to trans people. Removing trans identities from the mental health chapter is an important and overdue step”, says Dan Christian Ghattas, Executive Director of OII Europe “however we are very concerned that WHO has let the chance pass to depathologise intersex people and hence to work towards decreasing human rights violations intersex people face in medical settings.”

Since 2009 the United Nations Human Rights Treaty Bodies have called on UN Member States to stop human rights violations intersex people face in society and in medical settings more than 30 times. In 2017 the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe (PACE) issued the resolution “Promoting the human rights of and eliminating discrimination against intersex people”, calling the Member States to end pathologisation and harmful medical treatment, including surgeries and other medical treatment. Read more via OII