Government officials said classifying transgender people as mentally ill was “stigmatising” and they had “run out of patience” with the World Health Organisation’s (WHO) work on the definition.

“At the moment, transgender is listed as a mental illness or behavioural problem,” Social Democrat health spokesman Flemming Moller Mortensen told Danish news agency Ritzau. “That is incredibly stigmatising and in no way reflects how we see transgender people in Denmark. It should be a neutral diagnosis.”

He added: "The WHO is currently working on a new system for registering diagnoses. It has been working on it for a very, very long time. Now we’ve run out of patience, and want to send out a signal saying that if the system is not changed by October, then we in Denmark will go it alone.”
Changes by the WHO are characteristically slow, and the Danish government will now aim to push ahead with the move on 1 January 2017.

Denmark has been criticised by rights groups in the past for its treatment of transgender people, who had to undergo forced sterilisation and gain medical approval before being legally recognised as a different gender. However, in 2014, a landmark ruling allowed transgendered adults to legally choose their own gender identity without official medical approval.

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Originally posted by SorryI'mLuke

Wait, other countries (mainly USA/UK) believe trans is a mental illness?

Originally posted by iHype.

Originally posted by macrocycle

I don't know how I feel about this. I still feel like trans people have a lot of mental issues concerning their gender constructs as a child and need a LOT of therapy.

Originally posted by Diarrhoea