Transvestism is no longer a disease in Finland

The Institute for Health and Welfare will remove even sexual fetishism and sadomasochism from ICD

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Certain diagnoses relating to sexual behaviour will be removed from the Finnish version of the International Statistical Classification of Diseases and Related Health Problems (ICD) next year.
      The number of categories to be removed from the ICD is five, including transvestism, sexual fetishism, sadomasochism, and diverse sexual target disorders.
     
Transvestism is the practice of cross-dressing, which means wearing clothing traditionally associated with the opposite sex. Transvestism can also be associated with gender reassignment.
     
Sexual fetishism is the sexual arousal a person receives from a physical object, or from a specific situation, while transvestic fetishism is having a sexual or erotic interest in cross-dressing.
     
Sadomasochism broadly refers to the receiving of pleasure - often sexual - from acts involving the infliction or receiving of pain or humiliation.
     
The amendment to the ICD was made by the National Institute for Health and Welfare (THL) at the request of several associations.
      The ICD has been developed by the World Health Organization (WHO), but each country may create its own version of the classification.
      ”A year and a half ago, we made a decision to attempt at abolishing this category”, reports Minna-Maaria Lax, the chair of DreamWear Club, which is an association representing Finnish transvestites.
      In Sweden, a similar reform was made two years ago. In the past, the use of these categories has been slight.
      ”We studied all cases over a period of ten years and found only occasional ones”, reports Dr. Jorma Komulainen, the chief physician at THL.
      ”These are not rare behavioural patterns, but only seldom is there any reason to seek medical treatment”, Komulainen notes. In fact, so seldom that the abolition of the categories will have no effect on statistics whatsoever.
     
More harm has been inflicted on people who have felt that they have been labelled by such diagnoses.
      ”The major problem is that when examining himself or herself, a transvestite may have noticed that he or she has a mental disorder, thereafter starting to regard himself or herself ill”, Lax notes.
      In conflict situations, for example during a divorce, the classification may have given a weapon to the other party.
      When it comes to social thinking, the use of these categories is likely to raise public disapproval of transvestites.


Links:
  Transvestism (Wikipedia)
  National Institute for Health and Welfare
  Statistical Classification of Diseases and Related Health Problems (Wikipedia)
  DreamWearClub r.y. (in Finnish)

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