Participants in the 18th annual Jerusalem Pride parade in June 2019. (MENAHEM KAHANA/AFP via Getty Images)
Two years after the World Health Organization and 11 years after France, Israel has finally agreed that being trans is not a mental disorder.
New guidelines, drafted by Israel’s health ministry after three years of consulting with LGBT+ and trans organisations, set out how hospitals and healthcare facilities must treat transgender people.
The guidance directs that hospitals and healthcare facilities must have at least one staff member trained in trans awareness, use a trans person’s correct pronouns regardless of the gender on their official documents, and to provide unisex facilities where possible while allowing trans people to use gendered spaces in accordance with their gender identity.
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According to the guidelines, there is no ethical or professional justification for so-called conversion therapy for the purpose of altering someone’s sexual or gender identity, and they require medical professionals to use the pronouns of the gender with which the patient identifies while addressing them, regardless of their identity documents or physical appearance.
They also require hospitals and psychiatric wards to have at least one staff member who underwent training in order to be conscious of transgender people and to offer hospitalization conditions in accordance with their wishes, such as unisex bathrooms.