Transition Update – Second GIC Appointment

Yesterday I went up to London for my second Gender Identity Clinic appointment. It had been intended that I should be referred for surgery at this stage. Unfortunately, there was a snag …

After my first appointment last year, my GP was instructed to put me on a certain regime of feminising HRT, with a view to getting my hormone baselines to a level equivalent to post-surgery. They refused, citing amongst other things lack of experience, the fact that gender transition is still technically an unlicensed (albeit routine) use of these drugs, and their belief that the GIC recommendations had no authority in NHS Wales. I argued, I took them to advocates and the Assembly Member, but they refused to budge.

I eventually (November 2016) found a new GP who agreed to prescribe me somewhat of a compromise (using a cheaper but less effective anti-androgen), but the damage was done and I have lost 8 months. I return to the GIC in October for a follow-up session, but unless I am on the right prescription by then I will be no closer to being referred for surgery.

It is clear now the NHS in Wales, at least at the primary care level, is substantially opposed to providing gender reassignment, but since there is certainly no Welsh GIC in the works (for many reasons, both cost-based and owing to Wales’ weird geography) unfortunately their cooperation is essential. With the support of the GIC, I now intend to report my old GP to the General Medical Council and hopefully this will set a small fire under the collective posteriors of GPs who are refusing this care (and of their union the BMA, who are it seems not our friends in this political tussle). Since my husband is also meant to be starting his HRT very soon, and we see no likelihood of leaving Wales any time soon, this is doubly personal.

On a lighter note, some snaps I took while I was there …

Horsenden Hill, Perivale. Its claim to fame is that it is the main location in the last ever episode of “Doctor Who” (1963-89 version). Well, I felt awed, anyway, and tired (It is a fair bit steeper than it looks in this shot).

Shipping cranes at West India Quay, near Canary Wharf. Seen in the movie “Hellraiser,” in spite of that film being superficially set in some weird Anglophile American locale (The clear shot of a British Rail Intercity 125 train hardly helps, also).

Smiling through the chaos, until next time …