“The trans community is not one borne from comfort and convenience, but struggle and hardship”
BY FLORENCE OULDS, PHOTOGRAPHS VIA UNSPLASH
Eleven years ago, in my first year of university, I was chatting to another fresher who was also trans. I was still mostly in the closet; he was a good few steps ahead of me. I don’t remember everything we talked about, but he did say that I should probably get a referral to a gender identity clinic, as the waiting lists can be about a year long.
An entire year for a single medical appointment? Surely not.
Flash forward to today, and I’ve been on the waiting list for the Glasgow gender clinic since October 2019 – 67 months (that’s five and a half years) without a first appointment, or even so much as a letter. The national standard for maximum wait times for appointments like this is 18 weeks; I’ve waited that amount 14 times over.
Around this time last year, I decided that five years was long enough to wait and began the process of accessing private trans healthcare. I’m fortunate enough to have a job that means I can afford to pay over £400 for every doctor’s appointment, and £120 for hormones, but very few people in my community are in this position. A report Scottish Trans published last year found that 38% of trans people did not have a job, and 52% said that the rising cost of living had forced them to make decisions between essential household purchases and purchases relating to their transition.
People told us they were skipping meals and not seeing friends so they could afford healthcare that should be freely available on the NHS.
Back in the mid-2010s, it started to feel like trans liberation was going to have its moment. Laverne Cox on the cover of Time, growing awareness of trans rights, and cross-party support for legislation to make our lives a little bit better. Now, with politicians, celebrities, and even courts turning against us, that all feels like a bit of a hopeful dream.
The week before I started HRT, the Supreme Court decided that “sex” in the Equality Act always means “biological sex”. I was just about to start the process of medically transitioning to become more like the woman I know I am, and a court meant to protect people and deliver justice decided that I would always be counted as “male”.
When people ask me how it feels to have finally started HRT, I usually say, “it’s good, but I feel like I’m arriving very late to the party.” Most people laugh or smile, but I can tell that they know what I mean – that our brief moment of social acceptance is over, and the social rot of transphobia will decay the remaining tolerance in this country faster than the medication will transform my body.
A few weeks ago, I told a trans colleague the good news about my HRT, giving the line about feeling “late”. She congratulated me and said: “The dolls will keep on dollin’”.
And she was right. The trans community is not one borne from comfort and convenience, but struggle and hardship. While things might be looking down for us now, no politician or judge can legislate us out of existence – we’ve always been here, and we always will be.
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