Description
The World Professional Association for Transgender Health (WPATH), formerly the Harry Benjamin International Gender Dysphoria Association (HBIGDA), is a professional organization devoted to the understanding and treatment of gender identity and gender dysphoria, and creating standardized treatment for transgender and gender variant people. WPATH was founded in 1979 and named HBIGDA in honor of Harry Benjamin during a period where there was no clinical consensus on how and when to provide gender-affirming care.
Founding members included Dr. Harry Benjamin, Paul A. Walker, Richard Green, Jack C. Berger, Donald R. Laub, Charles L. Reynolds Jr., Leo Wollman and Jude Patton.
WPATH is mostly known for the Standards of Care for the Health of Transgender and Gender Diverse People (SOC). Early versions of the SOC mandated strict gatekeeping of transition by psychologists and psychiatrists and framed transgender identity as a mental illness. Beginning in approximately 2010, WPATH began publicly advocating the depsychopathologization of transgender identities and the 7th and 8th versions of the SOC took an approach that was more evidence-based.
