Category: Features

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Features Healthcare

Why should you complain about your GP?

Woman in distress talking to counsellor

If you’re being messed about by your GP; if your GP is not taking you seriously or is failing to provide care you are entitled to; then our message is simple: complain! Complain loud. Complain long. And do not let go. Because trans healthcare in the UK is a disgrace. But medical practitioners get away with abysmal because people do not think it worth the while to complain.

Why? Because nothing ever happens to trans-hostile GPs. But do you know why nothing ever happens to them? Because no-one complains!

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Features Healthcare

The Future of Trans Healthcare: Less is More

Stethascope on paperwork

Calls for more funding are an understandable and desperate plea for improvements to the only system we’ve known. But funneling more money into a system which continues to fail us is not the answer.

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Features Healthcare Lived Experience

My learning disabilities don’t make me any less trans, or any less of a man.

Alex Lloyd near a beach
Alex Lloyd, aged 36

But when I started to transition medically, it took a lot longer than other transgender people. When I asked for treatment, I had to wait a long time. They asked me loads of questions, like “you have a learning disability, so do you understand what transgender means?”  Someone told me I couldn’t possibly be trans, because it was “too complicated for me.”

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Features Healthcare Lived Experience

What difference does inclusive cancer screening make?

Cervical smear gurney in health centre

I let the nurse persuade me to make an appointment for a check up and went along to the trans specific clinic. I live in London so actually had a choice of two trans specific clinics to go to. I think it being a trans specific clinic made it better somehow. I didn’t have that fear of being misgendered, judged or pitied. I knew that my genitals wouldn’t faze them. There is no way I would have gone to my GP surgery for a smear.

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Allies Community Features Transphobia

Trans people need you to be an ally

Trans Ally Badge

It’s a difficult time to be a trans person in the UK. Over the last couple of years we’ve faced a relentless torrent of negativity in traditional media, social media and in the political arena ranging from misinformation to downright hostility. It is wearing to have one’s identity constantly denied, to be ‘othered’, mocked and portrayed as a threat to others. That’s why having allies is so important.

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Family Features

Maternal desire as a trans woman (and what to do about it)

Woman with baby

As my 27th birthday came and went, I gradually opened up, learned the words to express what I felt inside, and came to terms with my trans queer self. A future that previously seemed incomprehensible began to enter my sightlines, and I eventually came out as a trans woman.

What I didn’t see coming, was the warm glow of maternal desire I’ve felt in my body since turning 30. I’ve not medically transitioned, and the visceral depth of these feelings has taken me by complete surprise.

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