May 17, 1990

ICD-10

World Health Assembly adopts ICD-10 without homosexuality as a disorder in itself

The milestone commemorated every 17 May was buried in the adoption of an entire disease-classification manual — and it did not formally take effect until 1993.

Palais des Nations, 17 May 1990

At its fourteenth plenary meeting in Geneva on 17 May 1990 — the last day of the 7–17 May session — the Forty-third World Health Assembly adopted resolution WHA43.24, approving the Tenth Revision of the International Classification of Diseases and Related Health Problems.

The adopted ICD-10 removed the ICD-9 diagnostic category of homosexuality per se and stated that sexual orientation alone should not be treated as a disorder.

Adopted in 1990, in force in 1993

The resolution specified that ICD-10 would come into effect on 1 January 1993. The vote approved a future international classification; it did not edit a single operational list worldwide that evening, and member states implemented it through their own systems afterward.

The recommendations behind it came from the International Conference for the Tenth Revision, which met in Geneva from 26 September to 2 October 1989.

What stayed in the manual

ICD-10 kept the F66 categories, including “ego-dystonic sexual orientation,” “sexual maturation disorder” and “sexual relationship disorder,” even while stating that orientation alone was not a disorder.

The decision also concerned sexual orientation, not gender identity: ICD-10 continued to classify several gender-identity diagnoses.

And it was separate from the American Psychiatric Association’s removal of homosexuality from DSM-II in 1973, seventeen years earlier.

Sources

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What the sources leave uncertain

The date is solid: resolution WHA43.24 is dated 17 May 1990 and records adoption at the fourteenth plenary meeting that day.
“WHO removed homosexuality from its list of diseases” is accurate shorthand but imprecise. The assembly adopted ICD-10, which removed homosexuality per se as a diagnosis; it did not edit a single operational list worldwide that same day.
ICD-10 retained F66 categories including “ego-dystonic sexual orientation,” “sexual maturation disorder,” and “sexual relationship disorder,” even while stating that orientation alone was not a disorder.
ICD-10 was adopted in 1990, published afterward, and designated to take effect in 1993; sources sometimes use these different milestones as the date of “removal.”