What was intended to expand health coverage ended up opening a much broader discussion about stigma, rights, and medical language.
In May 2024, Peru’s Ministry of Health updated its Essential Health Insurance Plan and included seven diagnoses from the old ICD-10 classification under the section for “person with a mental health problem”. Among them were terms such as “transsexualism” and “dual-role transvestism”.
The reaction was immediate. Organizations and activists denounced the measure for reinforcing a pathologizing view of trans people. The Minsa itself clarified that gender and sexual diversity is not a disease and defended the update’s aim of guaranteeing coverage for care.
The controversy did not end there. On June 25, the Ministry ordered that those terms no longer be used in the chapter on mental disorders and that they be replaced with categories such as “gender incongruence”, placed outside that section. The provision began to apply in public and private health facilities.
Within a few weeks, a measure presented as a health update had ended up forcing the country to reconsider how its own health system talked about trans people.
