[18 September 2009]

The day preceding the worldwide Day Against Homophobia, 17^th of May 2009, the Minister of Health and Sports, Roselyne Bachelot-Narquin, announced that transsexuality would be declassified from the list of long term psychiatric disorders (ALD 23).

This declassificiation marks a significant change as ALD 23 was perceived as a “highly stigmatising label” for transsexual people.

The health insurance bodies will be involved in an upcoming project which will remove “early gender identity disorders” as a criteria for getting psychiatric assistance.

The patients health insurance coverage will hence forth be under the “unlisted” long term category (31^st illness) as proposed by the French Health Authority who Roselyne Bachelot had convened on the 11^th of June 2009.

Therefore, there will be no break in the treatment of these patients. Precise instructions will be handed out to the medical control bodies.

Additionally, the French Health Authority suggested, based on the example of what exists already concerning other rare medical conditions, the definition of a national protocol of diagnostics and care under the title of “disorder of gender identity” to improve and to harmonize the medical care of these patients nationwide. The French Health Authority suggested that centres of reference specializing on transsexualism are created to reduce the insufficient treatment offered in France, as currently a number of patients go abroad for their medical treatment.

The Minister of Health and Sports supports this initiative taken by the French Health Authority that focuses on an improvement of treatments for transsexuals. The organisations of transsexual people will be fully included in this ongoing process.

 

TGEU likes to thank Alecs Raecher, Emma Smith and Ryan Combs for the translation.