He 10 May 2024 The Peruvian Ministry of Health issued Supreme Decree No. 009-2024-SA, with which the Essential Health Insurance Plan is updated (PEAS). Diagnoses from the ICD International Classification of Diseases were incorporated into this guideline – 10, in which diverse sexual orientations, trans gender identities and expressions are considered mental disorders. Although the Ministry of Health of Peru explains that the update was intended to guarantee complete coverage in mental health care for trans people, This guideline is regressive and very dangerous in terms of human rights in the region.
The aforementioned Decree is based on an obsolete classification that was replaced in 2018 by the WHO and, in its current version, CIE-11, removed trans-related categories from mental and behavioral disorders chapter, moving them to a new chapter on conditions related to sexual health, precisely with the objective of continuing to provide coverage in health systems, but without pathologizing trans people. What's more, It is worth remembering that since 1990, the World Health Organization (OMS) took a significant step by officially removing homosexuality from its International Classification of Diseases (CIE).
The Inter-American Court of Human Rights has established that sexual orientation and gender identity are categories protected by the Convention, pathologizing them violates the human right to free development of personality, autonomy and the principle of human dignity. The Network of LGBTI+ Litigators of the Americas (onwards, the network) reproaches the failure of the Peruvian State to comply with its commitment to implement the new classification stipulated in the ICD-11 in its internal regulations, and that this omission leads to legitimizing medical classifications that pathologize LGBT+ people and are the fundamental cause of violence, the discrimination and stigma they face.
This Decree exposes LGBTI+ people to face situations of discrimination within the National Health System. Historically, Violence in medical settings has been justified in pathologizing classifications that create barriers for them to access health services that address their real needs.. But they are also the cause of other human rights violations based on the stigmatization of their sexual orientation and identity., such as efforts to change sexual orientation, a person's gender identity and expression, known as “conversion therapies”, practices that, under International Human Rights Law, can constitute forms of torture, cruel treatment, Inhuman or degrading.
