The Real Scandal in British Trans Care: 10-year Waiting Lists
A BBC Newsnight investigation is shedding light on the hopelessness of waiting years for a first appointment at a UK gender clinic.
Opinion, by Evan Urquhart
A report for BBC’s Newsnight represents the first time mainstream British press have provided an accurate account of the years-long waiting times for an appointment at a gender clinic that transgender people from the UK have long discussed within the trans community and on social media. Newsnight reported that patients who are currently being seen in England have waited, on average, for seven years before their first appointment. Wait times varied, with England having the worst and only Wales providing an appointment within the NHS’s 18-month target period.
Newsnight also analyzed data on the current length of the waiting lists and projected that, if no changes are made to improve the service, patients joining the list now would face more than 10 years of waiting before their first appointment.
screenshot from BBC Newsnight
Lengthy waiting times are relevant to the ongoing conversation about gender-affirming treatments. Anti-trans writers and activists frequently reference the Interim Cass Report from the UK as evidence to suggest that gender dysphoria may be a passing phase and a high incidence of mental health issues among young people being seen at gender clinics in the UK suggests that medical treatment for their gender dysphoria may be ineffective. However, the same report also found that years-long waiting times affected the youth gender service. This raises some questions: Could a child who has waited five years for a first appointment really be said to be experiencing a passing phase? And, could a poor standard of treatment in the UK, one that forces young patients to wait years and undergo the trauma of the wrong puberty before receiving any sort of treatment, including any counseling, be ultimately responsible for the poor mental health of patients in the UK gender clinics?
At least one young woman, Alice Littman, is believed to have died of suicide due, in part, to the poor quality of transgender healthcare in England. Littman died at 20 after having been on the waiting list for gender treatment for nearly three years with no treatment, no appointment, no support from the NHS whatever.
The quality of healthcare offered by specific national health services in Europe are an important factor to be aware of as politicians and activists in the US increasingly reference Europe as a model for how to reduce access to transition for American trans people. The lengthy waiting times, onerous assessments, and worsening mental health of trans Europeans would seem a poor example for any country to look towards. Meanwhile, while Europe is often presented by US activists as an apolitical place where anti-trans activism has no impact on the provision of transgender healthcare, the reality is that all of the countries mentioned have recently elected far-right governments and have their own movements attacking the rights and dignity of the transgender community.
Evan Urquhart is a journalist and the founder of Assigned Media.