Amnesty International has condemned Denmark for stereotyping its transgender community, requiring them to seek medical examinations in body-related matters despite legal measures intended to safeguard them.
Amnesty International is working with the transgender community to alter the healthcare system and disclose homosexuality as a mental disease.
Also, after two years in the design, they questioned 10% of the patients now getting therapy at the Sexologisk Klinik and discovered that a relative minority had been authorised for HRT.
Denmark eliminated transgender off its listing of mental diseases on January 1st. Even this, transgender Danes still must undergo a battery of highly criticised psychiatric exams before being permitted to have an operation to alter their gender.
Amnesty International’s Danish branch released a stinging report on the subject on Friday, condemning Denmark of breaching transgender Danes’ freedoms and thereby making them legally incapable by denying them the ability to make such choices about their bodies on their own.
“It’s about the right to your own body and your own life. Unfortunately, the point of departure is that the health system doesn’t trust that transgender people are capable of making decisions about their lives themselves,” Helle Jacobsen was cited as revealed in an interview with Danish newspaper Berlingske.
It’s still about transgender individuals convincing Sexologisk Klinik (national sexological mental health care) that they’re transgender. It’s effectively making them incapable in the eyes of the law.
” First of all, you are declared legally competent when you turn 18. This means that transgender people have the same right as everyone else can decide about their lives. Secondly, none of the people that Amnesty has spoken with has regretted their treatment. In contrast, it’s something that most of them have been wanting to do for years.”
Gabi Calleja, Co-Chair of the Executive Board of ILGA-Europe, stated that Denmark initiated another significant shift in Europe today, just as it did when it became the first nation in the world to create a legal notion of a same-sex relationship.
The legislature recognised personal rights rather than putting the authority in control of a person’s life and body.
Transgender people claim they have to undergo humiliating medical exams to get critical hormone medication and operations. Many people are trapped inside the system for a long time, battling despair and suicide or depending on illegal hormones.
ILGA-Europe Co-Chair Paulo Côrte-Real said that we are delighted to see Denmark adopt the Argentinian approach for formal gender classification in Europe today.
We urge other European governments to follow that example and eliminate unneeded, insulting, and demeaning rules that prevent individuals throughout Europe from thoroughly enjoying their lives in their chosen gender.
Psychological tests may take up to a year to complete. Depending on the evaluation findings, a person who wishes to have medical surgery to alter their gender may be denied.
Jacobsen added it should be feasible for transgender individuals to have the therapy they want. Most trans persons, according to movement organiser Helle Jacobsen, are characterised by a series of demeaning and degrading medical exams in which they feel compelled to verify their identity regularly.
