The Unacknowledged Threat of Trans Healthcare Waiting Lists
March 31, 2023By Dylan Mann-Hazell, Junior Content Writer at myGwork
As anybody who lives in the UK knows, getting an appointment with your GP under the National Health Service is an increasingly difficult feat. A combination of insufficient funding, an ever-growing population and criminally underpaid nurses and healthcare staff makes any long-term treatment difficult to arrange. As such, the needs of some patients are prioritized over others. Unfortunately, this means that forms of healthcare not related to urgent injury or physical illness are consistently pushed further down the line.
Perhaps the most renowned of this category is the extensive waiting times for therapy, for those struggling with their mental health. However, one of the more widely unacknowledged threats these waiting lists pose is faced by an entire community. The mass media won’t use their platforms to raise awareness of this issue – quite the opposite, they frequently do their best to demean and disregard this community with alarmist scaremongering. This is, of course, the silent impact of healthcare waiting lists on the transgender community.
Image Credit: Canva
Within the current media climate, the transgender community are consistently faced with libelous language, threats and abuse on social networking sites on a day-to-day basis. With high profile figures, both political and celebrity, spreading misinformation and dangerous falsehoods, the United Kingdom is becoming an increasingly hostile environment for trans people. In particular, the damage brought about by other members of the queer community who are perpetuating negative stereotypes is increasingly concerning.
Naturally, those experiencing gender dysphoria want to feel as safe, happy and secure as possible– and for many of them, this means undergoing gender affirmation surgery. As it currently stands, thousands of trans people are being forced to wait a considerable number of years to even be considered for the surgery process. With an increasing number of people openly identifying as transgender each year, it’s more integral than ever to ensure that the healthcare system efficiently reflects a developing society.
The mix of gender dysphoria and slow waiting times for treatment is also a major cause of the abhorrent mental health statistics within the transgender community. According to data collected by Stonewall’s LGBT in Britain Health Report, 70% of transgender people have experienced depression, and 71% have experienced anxiety. Though depression and anxiety are not always linked to life experiences, the immense emotional distress caused by stigmatization in the media, the lack of access to healthcare, and a general dismissal for the concerns of this community cannot be overlooked as a core factor in these statistics.
Tate Smith, Legal Secretary at Memery Crystal, has been on the trans healthcare NHS waiting list for almost 5 years, and to this day he is still waiting to attend his first appointment. We reached out to learn more about the personal impact this has had on him and discuss his hopes for the future of transgender healthcare in the UK.
"The NHS waiting list is the most demeaning part of living as a trans person in the UK.” he told us. “I have been on the NHS waiting list since October 2018 and have still not had a first appointment. It was only late last year that I received acknowledgement that I had been referred and during this time I have privately medically transitioned, accumulating costs of up to £8,000.
"When I first decided to go private, I was under a huge amount of physical, emotional and financial stress which resulted in me getting into debt and becoming underweight. I wish I had the support of an NHS gender identity clinic like I deserved instead of living off peanuts and pasta in order to afford my private medical appointments.
"My hope for the future is that we can get the three new gender identity clinics Liz Truss promised us in September 2020. There has never been a higher demand for such an implementation with 11,407 people alone waiting to access the Tavistock clinic (as of May 2022) and other gender identity clinics across the UK at capacity. If we don't take action now, we risk the waiting lists increasing by far more than their 5.1 year average waiting time.”
Tate is not alone in his experience; across the country, thousands of trans people are being denied the basic right to be themselves. How can members of the transgender community be expected to go about their lives, working and sleeping and socializing as normal, whilst feeling so alienated within their own body? At this point, it’s beyond callous that this has been allowed to continue – it's inhuman. As a country, we cannot truly claim we care about mental health and the wellbeing of the LGBTQ+ community until action is taking and the waiting times for trans healthcare are decreased dramatically.
In the meantime, allyship to the community and donations to the following trans-focused causes are immensely appreciated: