WPATH

MINNEAPOLIS / ST. PAUL (September 25, 2011)-The World Professional Association for Transgender Health (WPATH) will release a newly-revised edition of the Standards of Care for the Health of Transsexual, Transgender, and Gender Nonconforming People, on September 25, 2011 at the WPATH conference in Atlanta.

The revised Standards of Care can be found here

The SOC is considered the standard document of reference on caring for the transsexual, transgender, and gender nonconforming population. The newly-revised SOC will help health professionals better understand how they can offer the most effective care to these individuals. The SOC focuses on primary care, gynecologic and urologic care, reproductive options, voice and communication therapy, mental health services and hormonal and surgical treatment.

"The latest 2011 revisions to the SOC realize that transgender, transsexual, and gender nonconforming people have unique health care needs to promote their overall health and well-being, and that those needs extend beyond hormonal treatment and surgical intervention," said SOC Committee Chair, Eli Coleman, PhD, Professor and Director at Program in Human Sexuality, University of Minnesota.

This is the seventh version of the Standards of Care. The original SOC were published in 1979. Previous revisions occurred in 1980, 1981, 1990, 1998 and 2001.

WPATH recommends that identity documents be issued without the requirement for gender realignment surgery.

The Board of Directors of the World Professional Association for Transgender Health (WPATH), in the interest of the health and well-being of transgender and transsexual people world-wide, issued today, 16 June 2010, the following identity recognition statement:

No person should have to undergo surgery or accept sterilization as a condition of identity recognition.  If a sex marker is required on an identity document, that marker could recognize the person’s lived gender, regardless of reproductive capacity.  The WPATH Board of Directors urges governments and other authoritative bodies to move to eliminate requirements for identity recognition that require surgical procedures.

Below is the official statement from the World Professional Association for Transgender Health regarding proposed changes to the DSM-V.

The WPATH Board of Directors strongly urges the de-psychopathologisation of gender variance worldwide. The expression of gender characteristics, including identities, that are not stereotypically associated with one’s assigned sex at birth is a common and culturally-diverse human phenomenon which should not be judged as inherently pathological or negative. The psychopathologlisation of gender characteristics and identities reinforces or can prompt stigma, making prejudice and discrimination more likely, rendering transgender and transsexual people more vulnerable to social and legal marginalisation and exclusion, and increasing risks to mental and physical well-being. WPATH urges governmental and medical professional organizations to review their policies and practices to eliminate stigma toward gender-variant people.