Monday 1 February 2021

Patience is a Virtue (especially when you're trans)

This started off as a series of tweets which transcribed messages sent to me by my son in 2019, expressing his frustration with Gender Identity Development Services and the medical profession in general in relation to his treatment. Delay and procrastination seemed to be SOP and since Things Have Only Got Worse© since then, I've decided to put the thread into a blog post to save me having to keep searching for it.

Shared with his permission.


"anyway it's 2am and i can't sleep and i'm angry about newcastle so i made a Timeline Of Events since u love those things"


25th Jan 2015 - official coming out Jan 2016 - Saw the GP (who should've been able to refer me straight to tavi, but wasn't sure how to proceed and "felt more comfortable" referring me to CAMHS, which was no longer the recommended pathway)


June 2016 - Appointment with CAMHS, but had to be rescheduled because I had two GCSEs that day (He was taking his GCSEs as his grandfather was dying of cancer...)


July 2016 - Appointment with CAMHS where they wrote my Tavi referral (going through the entire history of my "gender journey" and getting info on my feelings, plans, family situation, etc)


23rd Dec 2016 - Received first letter from Tavi with initial appointment date

18th Jan 2017 - First Tavi appointment

Throughout 2017 I had six sessions, which were literally just a long form version of exactly what I got asked at CAMHS the year before. (Which had also necessitated him and us travelling to Leeds 6 times in order to answer them)

December 2017 - Final Tavi appointment, Newc referral written, came to the conclusion that I displayed all the signs of gender dysphoria and recommended me for treatment (aka Diagnosis 1)


April 2018 - First Newcastle [Adult services] appointment (in Carlisle, given 5 days notice, cost £40+ to get there, and they spent 35 minutes asking the exact same questions and coming to the exact same conclusions as CAMHS and Tavi, before telling me that because I wasn't on blockers I couldn't be put on the expedited waiting list for ex-Tavi patients, and said I had a ten month wait but they were doing their best to make it shorter) (aka Diagnosis 2)


December 2018 - Went to my new GP [by this time he'd gone to university] with 9 pages of documentation asking for a bridging prescription (which he should have been able to give me, but he "felt more comfortable" referring me to an endocrinologist despite the fact that the good practice guidelines say that GPs have the right to prescribe hormones "when the gender clinic is unable to meet the patient's needs within a reasonable or safe time frame")


Jan 2019 - Appointment with endo (two hour wait, missed a lesson, only to be told that she too wouldn't be willing to write me a bridging prescription because she "felt more comfortable" writing to Newcastle asking them what they thought she should do)


March 2019 - Bullshit letter from Newcastle arrives reading "Hi, We can't do anything, you can't either, we'll do something at some point lol" [He is, I think, paraphrasing here]


"It's been 47 weeks since my Newcastle appointment which is a Fair Bit Fucking Longer than anyone should have to fucking wait for medical intervention." [His words, not mine]


Me: Luckily, despite everything, he's an intelligent and resilient young man who appreciates that there are plenty of young trans people worse off than him in terms of mental distress.

But to all you "they're forcing young people to transition far too fast" types out there - this does not look to me like they're doing anything "too fast"; quite the reverse. The complete waste of effort spending a year going over to Leeds Tavi; the reluctance of all parties to actually act in the way that the guidelines suggest; the lack of any progress despite not one but two formal diagnoses of gender dysphoria. Nothing here is screaming "Slow down! You're moving too fast!!" at me.

And yes, I had reservations when he first came out ("You used to be a bit of a TERF, mum, but you're OK now."). I wanted to be sure he was sure of himself, but really - would you really put yourself through this for 4+ years if you were weren't serious?

A question I should probably put to the person who assured me a couple of years back that "she's just a butch lesbian but hasn't realised it yet." Anyway, that's his thoughts at the moment on where he's up to. Shared with his full consent. I'm proud of him.

(Apart from his inability to use capital letters...)


March 2019 - UPDATE: He's just re-read the thread on here, and has commented: "literally every single person i've seen has refused treatment on the grounds of what makes them feel most comfortable."

A point which a number of commentators had picked up on. Not exclusive to trans healthcare, of course, but far too prevalent.

And so 2019 came and went without a murmur, and then 2020 and Covid, with its inevitable delays. And then:


October 2020 - Me: A year and a half on, he's just had a letter from Newcastle about an appointment. He has to respond by the end of the month or they'll discharge him! He came out at 14; he's now 20. He's not going to have changed his mind. It would be laughable if it wasn't so serious.


He's since had a phone consultation and is due another appointment this month, so maybe things are finally beginning to move...


But if you want an indication of the level of misinformation and outright untruths being put forward by "gender critical feminists" pontificating about trans youth being forced down the transition route too quickly, this is it.

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