Hilary Cass’s review of children’s gender services revealed how young people are being badly let down by the NHS. The picture for adults awaiting treatment in NHS gender clinics is similarly bleak: the current system is broken – and thousands of people are stuck in limbo.
This is the first of four extracts from my book, Transsexual Apostate published by the Daily Mail
Are you sure you want to do this?’ the anaesthetist at Charing Cross Hospital asked as I lay on the trolley ready for theatre, giving me one last chance to back out.
It’s never been easy to get gender reassignment surgery on the NHS. More than a decade ago, when I was living in Birmingham, I was referred by a psychiatrist to a Gender Identity Clinic in London. NHS England funded seven adult clinics: none of which were anywhere near me. I had to take six days off work just to attend a series of brief appointments at the Charing Cross GIC in Hammersmith. My first assessment came in May 2012, six months after that referral. Four years later, I was eventually discharged after my surgery.
Debbie Hayton