Based in France, the WMA represents 112
member associations worldwide from Nigeria to
Cuba and the United States.
The World Medical Association, representing more
than ten million physicians, has adopted guidelines
to treat transgender people in ways that respect their
choices and rights and do not question their
sexuality, the global group said.
Delegates in the group from nearly 60 national
medical associations adopted a blueprint on how to
treat transgender people at a meeting on Sunday in
Moscow, the WMA said in a statement.
The guidelines recognize that being transgender is
not a disorder and explicitly reject "coercive
treatment or forced behavior modification," the
statement said.
The move responds to a need to provide transgender
people with healthcare that accounts for their
individual choices and rights, WMA Secretary General
Otmar Kloiber told the Thomson Reuters
Foundation.
In the past, some treatment of transgender people
has occurred with disregard for their unique needs
"and often this has happened with the participation
of the physician," he said.
Based in France, the WMA represents 112 member
associations worldwide from Nigeria to Cuba and
the United States.
Earlier this year, the Council of Europe, a human
rights watchdog, called on 47 countries to protect the
rights of transgender people, abolish medical
procedures needed to change legal gender and make
transgender-specific healthcare accessible.
In order to have desired gender legally recognized by
the government, most countries in Europe require
transgender people to undergo genital removal
surgery and sterilization, be diagnosed with a mental
disorder and get divorced if married.
Worldwide, transgender people comprise about one
in every 30,000 people, according to an estimate cited
by the Center for Excellence for Transgender Health
at the University of California, San Francisco.
A 2014 Amnesty International estimate tallied up to
1.5 million transgender people across the European
Union
