Principle 17

500 people demonstrated in Amsterdam on 26 June for change in transgender health care: “Get rid of waiting lists and diagnoses, towards self-determination and decentralisation”.

Delivered by veer on behalf of Principle 17, in front of the A-UMC (the former Vumc).

“The situation we are in nowadays with trans health care is not new. Nor is the fact that the health care system is quite insensitive to demands from the trans community for depathologisation. This depathologisation means that we refuse to be seen as having a disorder or be mentally ill for being trans. Until two years ago however, all medical classifications still judged us to be sort of incapable to judge for ourselves.

At the end of May this year, the Quartermaster Transgender Health Care published their Future Vision. The purpose of this is both to put pressure on and to stimulate existing care and its expansion (which it succeeds in doing!). After Principle 17 had sent a letter last year with a comment on their research on the trans population in the Netherlands, and Trans United Europe had a conversation with them that wasn't to be found anywhere in the Future Vision, we decided to write a peppery letter together with them and the Trans Health Clinic of Adrie van Diemen, with both our fundamental criticisms and suggestions for the future. This morning we had a conversation with the Quartermaster, which was fairly constructive. We will now publish our comments on this Future Vision.

This morning, 25 May 2019 at around 10:00, the ICD Committee of the World Health Organization has approved the eleventh edition of this universal classification of diseases. An important episode in the fight for depathologising and health care on a human rights basis has ended.

From 11 to 13 April 2019, the European Professional Association for Transgender Health (EPATH) held their third biennial conference. This time in Rome, with about six hundred participants. On 13 and 14 April, Italian activists had organised a DEpath meeting. There were about forty people present from home and abroad.

Respectvol jargon

After years of lobbying, politics has now understood that the situation of Dutch trans health care is harrowing, and that a sustainable solution must be achieved. This summer, a quartermaster was appointed, who will advise the parliament on the way to follow. Principle 17 considers it important that the needs and wishes of all trans* care recipients are taken into account in this process. That is why we are facilitating two expert meetings on trans health care this autumn.

The World Health Organization today released an online version of International Classification of Diseases (ICD) 11 that removes trans identities from the mental health disorders chapter. This is a historic achievement the global trans community has been fighting for over many years. It sets the fundament for a new era of reparation for done injustice and celebration of gender diversity.

Principle 17 is deeply concerned about the again dramatically accumulated waiting times in transgender health care. That is why this collective has started the petition "Structural expansion of transgender health care is essential!". Help us and sign the petition too!

The petition is addressed to the Lower House (‘Tweede Kamer’) and can be signed until 1 August 2018. The more people sign the petition, the more powerful the signal that the petition will bring. Signing can also be done anonymously.

Help us! Sign the petition at bit.ly/2JN5fmu

Principle 17 is pleased with the letters from Minister Schippers of 15 June 2017, but also criticizes them.

Breast implants
We are certainly happy that the unfair and indecent removal of breast implants from the health insurance now is being undone. But is emancipation the right budget to pay for it? After all, it is a medical necessity for the persons in question.