Peru controversially classifies transgender, nonbinary and intersex people as ‘mentally ill’

A nation has sparked backlash after officially classifying transgender, non-binary and intersex people as “mentally ill.”

The Peruvian government has officially classified transgender, nonbinary and intersex people as “mentally ill.”

The highly-controversial decision was made to ensure the country’s public health services could “guarantee full coverage of medical attention for mental health” for the trans community, the Peruvian health ministry explained, according to the Telegraph.

The decree will supposedly alter the language in the Essentials Health Insurance Plan to reflect that trans and intersex people have a mental disorder, LGBTQ+ outlet Pink News reported.

Despite the change, trans and other LGBTQ+ people will not be forced to undergo conversion therapies, the health ministry insisted in a statement issued on Friday, the outlet reported.

LGBTQ+ activist groups across Peru, however, slammed the decision as a major step backward in the fight for their rights and safety.

Peru's President Dina Boluarte.

“100 years after the decriminalisation of homosexuality, the @Minsa_Peru has nothing better to do than to include trans people in the category of mental illnesses,” Jheinser Pacaya, director of OutfestPeru, wrote on X.

“We demand and we will not rest until its repeal,” they added.

Percy Mayta-Tristán, a medical researcher at Lima’s Scientific University of the South, told the Telegraph that the decision showed a lack of awareness around the complexity of LGBTQ+ issues.

“You can’t ignore the context that this is happening in a super-conservative society, where the LGBT community has no rights and where labelling them as mentally ill opens the door to conversion therapy,” he explained.

Trans rights protesters in Lima, Peru.

Human Rights Watch said the nation had “chosen bigotry” following the call.

“The decree further calcifies prejudices against lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender (LGBT) people in Peru which have led to violence and discrimination against this population,” the organisation wrote.

“Officially pathologising LGBT people in Peru may seriously undermine efforts to improve rights protections based on sexual orientation and gender identity.”

Peru has seen social movements demonstrate in the streets over transgender rights, with protesters demanding “Justice for Seb and Rodri” during a protest to demand justice for Rodrigo Ventosilla, a Peruvian graduate student at Harvard and activist for transgender rights who died on the island of Bali days after being detained for alleged cannabis possession along with his husband, outside Peru's foreign ministry building.

This article originally appeared in the New York Post and was reproduced with permission