Demand #16: Action for Trans Health - Democratise trans healthcare now! Stop cis gatekeeping of essential treatment.
Guest demand by Action for Trans Health
Trans health care is in crisis and it’s killing us
About 40% of trans or gender variant people attempt suicide at least once during their lifetime. Whilst there are a lot of factors informing this phenomenon - such as family rejection, discrimination, and harassment - the biggest influence on this figure is the lack of access to adequate and timely transition related medical treatment.Whilst many in the medical establishment consider transition related treatmentcosmetic and elective, trans people know that it is life-saving.
Everything is geared up against trans people accessing this vital health care. Whether its doctors who don’t know what “transgender” means, psychiatric evaluations designed to catch us out and remove us from waiting lists (with waits already several times longer than the legal requirements), or a dire lack of funding, we all face significant barriers to access. If we are disabled, a person of colour, non-binary, have mental health issues, or don’t hold tight to a narrow 1950s idea of what gender looks like, we face even more barriers to getting transition-related treatment. And when we are simply going to the doctors for an upset stomach, our trans status seems to be all the doctors want to talk about…
For a democratic trans health care
Trans people are experts on our own lives and we know more about our health care needs than NHS management (and frequently, the doctors who are treating us). We need trans people at all levels of decision making regarding our healthcare and an end to cis (non-trans) gate-keeping of our lives. We need a health care system which is based on what we need, not on some psychiatrist’s outdated idea of what gender should look like. We need an end to the privatisation of health care services, and a massive investment in transition-related care and mental health services which are actually empowering rather than institutionalising.
In short, we need a radical democratisation of trans health care, and healthcare as a whole.
Find out more at actionfortranshealth.org.uk twitter @act4transhealth facebook.com/actionfortranshealth
24th March 2015
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