The World Health Organisation has dropped its labelling of transgender people as having a mental disorder.

The decision was approved by World Health Assembly on Friday (25th May) and is set to “librate” trans and non-binary people worldwide. The board of WHO represent 194 member states, and its hoped the new policy will trickle down into national policies.

Graeme Reid, LGBT rights director at Human Rights Watch, said trans people should have easier access to the appropriate medical care and that governments should swiftly reform national medical systems and laws implementing the outdated policies.

Reid went on, “Transgender people are fighting stigma and discrimination that can be traced in part to medical systems that have historically diagnosed expressions of gender non-conformity as a mental pathology,” he said.

“But it’s the stigma, discrimination, and bullying—and not anything inherent in gender nonconformity—that can inflict mental health problems in transgender people.”