Transgender people face two-year wait

euryale-dreams:

tranarchist:

3999999:

thecringeandwincefactory:

anarcho-rokabilly:

tranarchist:

Transgender people are waiting up to two and a half years for initial consultations at NHS gender identity clinics.

This is despite an NHS England pledge in 2016 to bring waiting times to below 18 weeks by 2018.

The average wait from receiving a GP referral to getting a first appointment is 18 months.

Needless to say this is completely unacceptable and the denial of healthcare for literal years leads directly to preventable trans suicides- which the gender clinics don’t even acknowledge.

Even worse is that the only reason there is any waiting time at all is because of the perceived need to “““diagnose”““ trans people. As James Barrett, the current head of Charing Cross gender clinic states- “The least certain diagnosis is that made by the patient, made as it is without any training or objectivity” (x).
Trans people can’t simply be trusted to know that they are trans, only a medical “specialist” is supposedly qualified to know this.

If it wasn’t for this inherently transphobic gatekeeping, trans people could be prescribed hormones and referred for other treatments directly by their doctors- just the same as cis people- on the basis of informed consent.

Hey this is what i’m going through RIght Now :)))

This is asinine. Stay strong ❤️

what this neglects to mention is that 2 years is more or less the SHORTEST time you’ll have to wait. I’ve talked to people who’ve been told they’ll wait at least 5 years.

and this is not the time you wait to get on hormones, oh no, this is just the first appointment. you’ll need at least two depending on the practice. the appointments can be several months apart. the only way to get treatment sooner is going private but not everyone can afford £250 appointments + travel costs. so basically if you’re poor and trans in the uk it’s incredibly difficult.

Yep I waited over a year for my first appointment at Charing Cross only to find out it was going to be almost another whole year before the second one.

They absolutely refuse to approve hrt after the first appointment regardless of if you’ve socially transitioned.

In fact in the mid-2000s Barrett and other staff at Charing Cross tried to have another doctor there struck off from the medical register for failing to follow this arbitrary waiting period because he was approving hrt on the first appointment based on individual circumstances (they failed, but he retired soon after). And they also come after gps prescribing hrt to trans people.

They really are insistent that trans people be denied hormones as long as possible.

That last point about them going after GPs who circumvent their violence is why I will never in my life support a gender clinic, regardless of how “good” they are: The clinics are intently motivated to undermine independent, trans friendly physicians because a world that does not need specialist clinics for trans people is a world that does not need them.

Transgender people face two-year wait