A campaign that aims to end the classification of transsexuals as individuals who suffer an ‘illness’ as well as educating the general population that sexual diversity not limited to the male and female genre was launched in Lisbon this week. Identical events were held simultaneously in 38 cities in Europe, Latin America, the USA and Asia, to promote the Stop Trans Pathologisation 2012 movement that has been organized by more than 180 international associations.

Transsexualism is a condition in which an individual identifies with a physical sex different from the one they were born with. A medical diagnosis can be made if a person experiences discomfort as a result of a desire to be a member of the opposite sex, or if a person experiences impaired functioning or distress as a result of that gender identification. “The aim is to demand an end to the classification of non-conforming gender identities, like transsexual and intersexual [hermaphrodites] individuals, as mentally ill on reference documents belonging to the World Health Organisation’s American Association of Psychiatry (AAP), which will be reviewed in 2012 and 2014”, said Sérgio Vitorino of Portugal’s Pink Panther Association, which is promoting the event in this country.

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For fifteen years, Fatima Abed Rabbo lived as a girl in Jabalya, Gaza. She wore girl’s clothing, and went to an all-girl’s school.
But shortly after turning 12, Fatima, now renamed Odai, recalls undergoing changes.
“I was normal. I used to be a girl and my name was Fatima. Before my father found out and the doctors checked me, I felt like a girl. But after I turned 12 years old, I began feeling more like a boy than a girl,” Odai Abed Rabbo told Reuters Television.
Majd Abed Rabbo, Odai’s father, said that following several medical tests, a hormonal imbalance was detected in Odai. The results showed that Odai had high levels of testosterone and needed a sex-change operation.
He is not the only transgendered person in his family. Odai’s cousin was once a female named, “Ola”. Now he is a male named, “Nader”.

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