Athens, June 3, 2024
PRESS RELEASE:
Subject: «Unscientific conference of the SEGM with the support of the School of Medicine Athens, NKUA»
The Greek Transgender Support Association (GTSA), is a voluntary non-governmental organization that promotes the rights and freedoms of trans, gender-diverse and LGBTQI+ persons in general, with this press release declares its strong concern about the unscientific conference of the Society for Evidence-Based Gender Medicine (SEGM) with the support of the School of Medicine Athens, NKUA.
Specifically, from Wednesday 2 October to Saturday 5 October, a conference is being organized in English by the Society for Evidence-Based Gender Medicine (SEGM), entitled “Psychotherapeutic approaches to youth gender dysphoria”, which has publicly announced only the conference program without any other information about the place of the event.
At this conference, only the titles, the hours of the conference and the speakers have been announced, where from the titles can immediately perceive the psychiatricization of gender identity in the context of the dissemination of a “Gender Identity Exploratory” model, which is promoted by this specific organization , as we see in the titles of conference participants’ speeches for Wednesday 2 and Thursday 3 October 2024, where they refer to “developing psychological therapies for gender dysphoria”, “studying how gender dysphoria develops and responds to treatment”, “the trouble with gender identity”, “from transsexual to transgender”, for Friday October 4, 2024, refer to “emergence of mental disorders in adolescence”, “autism spectrum disorders”, “eating disorders”, “body dysmorphic disorder”, “sex matters : differences in assessment and treatment for boys and girls experiencing gender distress” and for Saturday October 5, 2024 refer to “psychological formulation as an alternative to diagnosis”.
Some of the above speakers titles will be discussed at the conference, which is aimed at trans minors and medicalises them by talking about “gender dysphoria”, “therapy” and using outdated and abusive terms like ‘transsexual’, which stigmatizes trans persons, using it as a transition to “transgender”, thereby medicalizing gender identity and giving space to psychotherapeutic practices that on the one hand abuse and on the other hand do not respect the gender identity of the trans person.
In the Annual Report of the Southern Poverty Law Center (SPLC), which specializes in reporting extremist and far-right organizations that promote hate, it has listed the Society for Evidence-Based Gender Medicine (SEGM) as a hate group against LGBTQI+ rights with pseudo-scientific evidence, which aims to remove bills inclusive of gender identity.
The conference, in addition to being organized by the SEGM organization, has an unethical and unprofessional basis as it does not follow the ICD-11 classification list of the World Health Organization, which has completely removed the category F64 (as well as the subsequent F65 which refer to “gender identity disorder”) from the category of mental disorders and instead added category 6 (“Conditions related to sexual health” – 6A50) the gender incongruence as a simple human condition, so that trans people are not stigmatized and without to consider trans status as a disease that requires therapy.
In the direction of the World Health Organization is also the statement of the World Professional Association for Transgender Health (WPATH) where it states:
“Medical and other barriers to gender recognition for transgender individuals may harm physical and mental health. WPATH opposes all medical requirements that act as barriers to those wishing to change legal sex or gender markers on documents. These include requirements for diagnosis, counseling or therapy, puberty blockers, hormones, any form of surgery (including that which involves sterilization), or any other requirements for any form of clinical treatment or letters from doctors”.
Also, according to the position of the Intercultural Psychiatry Branch of the Hellenic Psychiatric Association (HPA), as published on the website of the Hellenic Psychiatric Association (HPA) on 12.06.2020, it is in the direction set by the World Health Organization for the depathologisation of the trans status state:
“[…] Reliable international studies, as well as psychological tests, demonstrate that the trans status is not a psychopathology, but a variation of the normal expression of gender. […] Our Intercultural Psychiatry Branch strongly disagrees with the psychiatricization of the transgender condition. […] Intercultural Psychiatry, with particular sensitivity, stands against the abuse of Psychiatry, and its instrumentalization by various forms of power, in order to use pseudo-scientific arguments to register the psychiatrist in the citizen’s consciousness as the arbiter of normality, […]”.
Also, in Law 5089/2024 “Equality in civil marriage, amendment of the Civil Code in other provisions“, in “Extension of the principle of non-discrimination in other areas”, in Article 9, any discrimination regarding gender identity in health services is prohibited and in the provision of services, among them the services provided by psychologists and psychiatrists to trans persons.
The Greek Transgender Support Association strongly protests and considers it more than alarming, in fact shameful, especially the fact that the School of Medicine of the National Kapodistrian University of Athens supports such a conference which is organized by an organization recorded as a hate group and implemented with extreme secrecy regarding the place of the event, as an institutional body should promote modern scientific knowledge, free from prejudices and stigma that target the trans community and especially when it approaches children.
GTSA Scientific Group of Mental Health & Affirmative Care has since 2010 supported a large number of cases of trans persons who are in transition using only the affirmative model, which is compiled with international bodies guidelines.
For all of the above reasons, the GTSA calls on the State to proceed with the necessary amendments for Greece to modernize the relevant framework so that the trans status is not pathologized and will continue to fight for the complete de-stigmatization and de-medicalization of concepts related to gender identity.
GREEK TRANSGENDER SUPPORT ASSOCIATION
Trans Day Reception & Empowerment Center: Evangelistrias 6, Kallithea Athens, 17671
Tel. 210.9210697 & 698 753 9741
Office hours for the public: Tuesday & Friday – 16.00-19.00
