World Professional Association for Transgender Health
| Abbreviation | WPATH |
|---|---|
| Formation | September 1979 |
| Type | NGO |
| 94-2675140 | |
| Legal status | 501(c)(3) |
| Purpose | To promote evidence-based care, education, research, advocacy, public policy, and respect in transgender health |
| Headquarters | East Dundee, Illinois, U.S. |
| Products | Standards of Care for the Health of Transgender and Gender Diverse People |
| Membership | 2,700 (2021) |
| Asa Radix | |
| Loren Schechter | |
| Chris McLachlach | |
| Stephen Rosenthal | |
| Revenue | $1,245,915 (2016) |
| Expenses | $1,144,284 (2016) |
| Employees | 0 (2016) |
| Website | www |
Formerly called | Harry Benjamin International Gender Dysphoria Association |
The World Professional Association for Transgender Health (WPATH), formerly the Harry Benjamin International Gender Dysphoria Association (HBIGDA), is a professional organization focused on understanding and treatment of gender incongruence and gender dysphoria, and creating standardized treatment for transgender and gender variant people. WPATH was founded in 1979 and named HBIGDA in honor of one of its founders, Harry Benjamin, during a period when there was no clinical consensus on how and when to provide gender-affirming care.
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 seventh and eighth versions of the SOC took an approach that was more evidence-based.