TransActual’s Transition Access Survey 2022 is a report on more than 1,000 trans people’s experiences of accessing (or trying to access) transition related care in the UK.
The report details:
- the impacts of waiting on people’s mental and physical health, work lives, and personal relationships;
- the benefits of having access to different aspects of medical transition, including some aspects not currently available on the NHS;
- the prevalence of self-medication, private HRT prescriptions, and private surgical care – and the costs of this.
GICs and hormone therapy
- Fewer than 15% of those referred to a GIC after 2017 had attended a first appointment.
- The average waiting time for an initial private appointment was more than 9 times shorter than the average wait through the NHS.
- Waiting to access hormones impacted the mental health of nearly all of our respondents.
- Waiting to access hormones impacted the physical health of 78% of our respondents.
- Personal relationships are also impacted by the wait to start HRT, with 61% telling us that it had a negative impact.
- Over half of respondents had access HRT privately, with more than three quarters of those telling us they went private due to the waiting times.
- Quarter of respondents had self-medicated for HRT.
Surgery
- The average waiting time for NHS transition related surgery is over 3 years.
- Surgery waiting times through the NHS were more than three times higher than for private surgery.
- Waiting to access transition related surgery impacted the mental health of more than 4 in 5 of our respondents.
- Waiting to access transition related surgery impacted the physical health of 62% of our respondents.
- Of our respondents, two thirds told us waiting for surgery had impacted their personal relationships.
- 8% of transfeminine respondents told us they’d had facial feminisation, which is currently unavailable on the NHS. 68% of transfeminine respondents told us they’d like to access it.
Hair removal
- 91% of people who accessed hair removal had done so privately.
- Four in ten respondents told us that the hair removal provided by the NHS was insufficient.
Money and work
- More than half of respondents told us that their workplace hadn’t been supportive of their medical transition.
- 63% of respondents said that waiting for hormones had a negative impact on their work life.
- Waiting for surgery negatively impacted the work life of more than half of our respondents.
- The average spend on transition related care was £5,573, with the amount spent differing depending on a person’s gender, averaging £17,276 for transfeminine respondents.