WHO Drafts Guideline on Inclusive Health for Trans, Gender-Diverse People

The WHO's Departments of Gender, Rights and Equity - Diversity, Equity and Inclusion (GRE-DEI), Global HIV, Hepatitis and Sexually Transmitted Infections Programmes (HHS), and Sexual and Reproductive Health and Research (SRH) are developing a guideline on the health of trans and gender diverse people.

This new guideline will provide evidence and implementation guidance on health sector interventions to increase access and utilization of quality and respectful health services by trans and gender-diverse people. The guideline will focus on five areas:

• Provision of gender-affirming care, including hormones

• Health workers' education and training for the provision of gender-inclusive care

• Provision of health care for trans and gender-diverse people who dealt with interpersonal violence for their needs

• Health policies that support gender-inclusive care

• Legal recognition of self-determined gender identity  

Following WHO guidance for guideline development, a guideline development group (GDG) will be composed of members from all the WHO regions acting in their individual capacities (not representing any affiliated organization). The members of the GDG are not commissioned and do not receive any financial compensation. 

Members of the GDG for this guideline were chosen by the WHO technical staff based on their relevant technical expertise, end-users (program managers and health workers), and the members of the affected communities. The GDG will meet in October and November 2023 aiming to

• examine the grading of recommendations assessment, development, and evaluation (GRADE) evidence profiles or other assessments of the quality of the evidence used to inform the abovementioned areas,

• interpret the evidence, with explicit consideration of the overall balance of benefits and harms,

• formulate recommendations, taking into account benefits, harms, values and preferences, feasibility, equity, acceptability, resource requirements, and other factors, as appropriate, and

• suggest implementation considerations and highlight research gaps for the guidelines. 

In line with the WHO policy on conflict of interest, members of the public and interested organizations can access the biographies of the GDG members for this guideline and inform the WHO of their views about them. The current list comprises 14 of 20 members and the remaining will be published soon.

- This press release was originally published on the World Health Organization website