The trials of trans healthcare

When I first started investigating this story, I was inspired by the hardship of friends who had recently transitioned and were seeking HRT (Hormone Replacement Therapy). Although we are very lucky to have the NHS, the transgender community appear to all agree that the infrastructure is simply not there to provide adequate care for everyone who may be questioning their gender. In many cases, they are not questioning their gender but certain they want to transition, but waiting lists are so choked up that there are no appointments available to treat them.

In the case of those around me, it has taken over two years to even be considered for HRT. Perhaps we are still seeing the toll of a backlog left in the wake of the pandemic, or maybe a solution is nigh. The NHS have pledged to introduce a gender identity clinic for every region in the UK by this time next year, but there is no clear evidence to suggest this will definitely happen. How ironic, as we head into Trans Visibility Week, that the trans community feel invisible and that their voices remain unrepresented in many areas.

Earlier this week I spoke to Alice Neale, a conversion therapy survivor who dug up memories of the historic "treatment" she received as a young girl. Her story is shocking and upsetting, especially considering how long ago her story happened and how little has been done to prevent similar cases from happening elsewhere. You will be able to read it in full when The Trans Cure? is released on 17th December on this very site.

Alice is 83 now, and though she knew she was born in the wrong gender when she was just six, she only had the operation to fully transition six years ago. For decades, she was weighed down in a society that was intolerant towards people being themselves for so long, that when she started to be accepted by her neighbours and family, she had the confidence to finally be free of the parts of her that felt wrong.

Alice is happier than she has ever been, and lives in a very grand house with some of the loveliest decor I can remember seeing. She and her friend make model railways in their spare time, and as a former carpenter she has made much of the furniture from scratch. It is a lovely home, belonging to a lovely person who deserves to feel content in herself.

Life is short, and everybody should be free to be themselves so long as they never harm somebody else in the process. The very nature of conversion therapy attempts to upend this principle, teaching transgender - and, indeed, lesbian and bisexual - people that they need to be a certain way to be accepted within society. Fortunately, we live in a time where there is enough discussion over outlawing these practices that something may soon change. Unfortunately, the process of seeking trans healthcare is arduous, and all the people I have spoken to so far are dissatisfied with where it currently stands.

As I reach the halfway point of my investigation, I continue to be astounded by the difference between where we think trans rights are and the way trans people are actually treated. There is light at the end of the tunnel, as Alice and the other survivors I have spoken to have seen the progress play out in real time. From the 1940s when conversion therapy practices where often enforced by the healthcare models we are taught to trust, to the 2020s where a draft bill on the conversion therapy ban is apparently incoming, so much has changed. In a story full of so much darkness and uncertainty, it feels great to have some hope about what comes next.