WHO 1990 (May 17)

On May 17, 1990, the World Health Assembly approved the tenth revision of the International Classification of Diseases (ICD-10), which removed homosexuality from the classification of mental disorders. It is the most frequently cited global milestone of depathologization: the world’s highest health authority, through a formal revision of its classification, affirmed that homosexuality is not an illness.

The date itself became a symbol. Since 2005, May 17 has been observed as the International Day Against Homophobia, Biphobia and Transphobia. And on May 17, 2019, Taiwan’s legislature passed its marriage equality act — an echo across the decades that made the date resonate even more in the Chinese-speaking world.

The fuller timeline: the American Psychiatric Association removed homosexuality from its own manual, the DSM, back in 1973; the WHO completed the international revision in 1990; China’s CCMD-3 followed in 2001; and ICD-11 (adopted 2019, in force 2022) cleared out the remaining legacy categories. Depathologization was a decades-long process — May 17, 1990 is its loudest single day.

Register note: in general writing, “in 1990 the WHO removed homosexuality from its disease classification” is fine; precise writing should say the World Health Assembly approved ICD-10 that day, with formal entry into force coming years later.

Common misreading: conflating 1990 (WHO/ICD) with 1973 (APA/DSM), or mixing up “adopted” and “in force.” See the myth-busting page.