Josie

Before we went, it was lovely actually, before I rang the GP I had already Googled and so I knew that the [Gender Identity Development Service] was what we needed. And I rang the receptionist and you know, cause they triage everything. So I spoke to the receptionist and, and I explained and I said, so, you know, I need, we need to make an appointment to see one of the GPs and she said, ''Oh, which GP do you want? And so I said, ''Oh I don't know. Who would you recommend?'' And she went, ''I think you should see Doctor So and So.'' And she was absolutely right, because he's just the loveliest, he's just the loveliest GP. He's really, really nice. And went to the appointment and he had a little chat with me and he had a little, then I went out and he had a little chat with [name of participant’s daughter]. And we came back in and he said, ''I actually don't know anything about this. And I don't want to waste your time. So if you could make an appointment, you know, for a couple of days then I will find out what I need to know and then we'll have a proper appointment and I'll send off the referral.'' And I just, that was really lovely. I mean, obviously, it would have been even better if he have had known. But I just thought it was fantastic that he just, you know, he was just really honest and he just said, ''I've never come across this before. I don't know what to do. I don't want to tell you the wrong thing. I will find out.'' And that was really lovely. He was, they've been really, really supportive ever since then. So he was really great.

And then you had the second meeting with the same GP when—?

That's right, when he had found out a little bit more about what to do and then they just filled in, he filled in the referral form with [name of participant’s daughter] then and there and then he's been really supportive ever since then, yeah.

Well I think it's terrible. I think it's, I know two years when you're an adult doesn't seem like that long. But that's two years out of somebody's childhood. Two years, they could, you know, at the beginning of that time they could have not entered puberty. By the end of that time, you know, they could be having periods. They could have breasts. They could have a full beard. They could have a broken, you know, it's really urgent that young people get seen and the, that the level of, it's hard looking back and the level of anguish and distress.

Our daughter was really, really ill. She was really unhappy. You know, I used to have to sleep on her bedroom floor at night, because she was frightened that she would get out and harm herself. And all that time, we were waiting for help and if it'd been two years, I just, you know. And that's only, that's only for the beginning of somebody helping you.

We've had mixed experiences with CAMHS. We had let's see, the consultant, would it be a consultant? The psychiatrist anyway at CAMHS who prescribed Fluoxetine for [name of participant’s daughter], cause she was, had a very, very low mood. He was really helpful. And she had two different therapists who she worked with one of those, that didn't work at all. And again, he had more of a kind of let's sit and talk about all of this. Let's go over it all. And, and she found that very, very distressing and very, very annoying. But she also then had another therapist who just got the measure of her better. And would do things like [name of participant’s daughter] would bring the dog to the appointment. And they would go for a walk with the dog, in the park and just have a chat. And then the dog would come back in the office and sit on the chair while they finished off. And so she was really, I think the difference was that one of them was a very, I don't really know how to say, I don't really know how to say it, like a very sort of psychoanalytical kind of you know, wanting to talk about all these things, whereas the one that worked well was a bit more like a mum, you know, kind of a bit more down to earth, a little bit more practical. And so that, that then worked out really well. But we did find there was a couple of things with CAMHS so I don't think we ever had a letter from CAMHS that used her correct name or pronouns on it, even after we gave them the Deed Poll several times. They just didn't have anything in place for that. They still had the, they still had you know like the toilets. There was a men’s toilet and a women's toilet. There was just no need. They were single occupancy cub—do you know what I mean? There was nothing. You could tell that they didn't really, you could tell they didn't really know anything about gender diversity and it was really clear.

So that wait was really difficult and then we went and the first appointment, first little bit they were really helpful, because they kind of they, they asked her what name and pronouns she wanted, which, you know, we hadn't, that hadn’t really even crossed our mind to do that. And so they were the, probably the first people to start using it, apart from her friends, but you know, the first adults anyway. But as time went on, yeah and she, she very quickly had a, you know, that they made a diagnosis of gender dysphoria and, and so on. And we had several sessions where we were with one practitioner and she was with another practitioner. But as time went on, the sessions just started to distress her more and more. And it was, it was really clear that she wasn't really, her way of dealing with that in the first instance was she sort of kind of withdrew herself from it a bit really. And we started to have concerns as well, because it was really, we couldn't really understand what they were doing. So the first bit was really clear. Nobody actually told us, but it was pretty clear that what was happening was that she, that they were gonna make a diagnosis and say, you know, whether she. But once they had done that and the sessions just kept going and kept going and kept going, we couldn't understand what they were doing. We thought they were doing therapy, but then they actually said, oh no, this isn't therapy, but it wasn't really an assessment either.

We had [name of participant’s daughter]’s diagnosis of ADD was done privately. And that was just because we'd had so much waiting around. We were just, we were just, we can't wait any longer. So, yes, but, but specifically for trans issues, no. If I had, if I was doing this journey again starting with what I know now, we would definitely have sought private healthcare, because the time when [name of participant’s daughter] was waiting on blockers and waiting for oestrogen was really harmful for her. She missed, you know, it was a really bad time. And all that she needed, all that she needed was to be on the correct treatment, that was all that she needed and as soon as she was on it she was alright. So, if we'd've known then yeah, then we would have gone privately. If there had been anything that we could access of course, because that's an issue as well now. 

She didn't have any diagnosis of anything while we were at the [Gender Identity Development Service]. She, she's now been diagnosed with attention deficit disorder. And she does have some presentations that look a little bit like autism, although she doesn't have a diagnosis of autism. And I'm absolutely convinced that the [Gender Identity Development Service] therapists thought that she was autistic and thought that [ding] people who have autism can have a rigidity of thinking, as you know and they can have these kind of obsessions with things, special interest with things. And I'm, I'm absolutely convinced that they, that that was counting against her being just taken at face value as being a trans young person, definitely. Further to that, I think that the elements of her personality that mean that that kind of social chit-chat or talking about feelings or anything like that that's part of her make-up. I think that the system, what the way that they, that they wanted to do things that it was, that was really, really difficult for her, because what they want to do in GIDS is they want to talk to you and they want you to talk about what's going on inside you and how you feel about things. And that's actually very, very difficult for somebody who has any of those neuro atypical feelings, because what she likes to do and I think this is really common for people with ADD and autism is she likes to talk about things that interest her. So, you know, whatever it might be she likes to talk about ideas. She likes to talk about her special interests. She doesn't like talking about how she feels or it, it's really hard for her to do. And I think that was then read as not participating in the, the process. So I think, I think given that the high numbers of young people, you know, with autism who, who are also trans that's definitely something that they really ought to, they ought to be looking at, because if the thing they need the young people to do is something that they can't do then that just doesn't really work.

I think we kind of started off, it started off while we were still with them, because we were, were trying to access oestrogen for [name of participant’s daughter]. And we felt very much that we were caught up in a sort of 'Catch 22' because she had to be sad enough that they diagnosed gender dysphoria. But then, they seemed to be saying that her mental health was too poor for her to be able to go onto hormone treatment. So it was kind of like, you had to be quite sad, but not too sad and it was kind of like, we were caught up in it. You know, it was sort of like, oh well, I'm afraid you're actually, you know, you're distressed enough to have gender dysphoria so that's a tick, but now you're too distressed and so that means that your mental health isn't stable enough to access. So that was, that was kind of it. But we also, we also picked up on a couple of other things with them, so this idea that in order to access hormones she would have to present in a more stereotypically feminine way. You know, we were just shocked that anybody would say that to anybody. So that was part of it as well. And then the last thing was that they told us that they had a policy that someone has to be on blockers for twelve months, a minimum of twelve months before they can access hormone treatment and they said that that's just a protocol. But then when I read the protocol, that's not what it says.

Public debate. I mean, some of it's, you know, some it's really, some of it's perfectly positive and I get that. But certainly in the UK it's really very negative at the moment and really worrying.

Does it affect you personally?

Yeah. Yeah, it does. It makes me feel sad and it makes me feel worried about the future and it makes me feel angry some of the things. And eventually it all starts to wear you down and you kind of, you start to try and—I try to step back from it sometimes, but other times, you know, you know I'm writing letters to people and, you know, write letters to the papers and stuff, because it yeah, a lot of it's just really unfair and wrong.

It was really bad and really stupid as well, because you know, some people really are bereaved. Lots of, lots of parents have lost a child. We are really lucky, our child didn't go anywhere. Yeah, yeah, I did. I did. I like I say, you shouldn't beat yourself up about it. I think a lot of people go through that. But then, first of all you realise that you haven't lost your child, it's just there's something you know them, you know more about them than you did before. You know them better than you did before. And yeah, they are not a different person. And then, you know, one day you, you wake up and you can't understand why you even felt like that, so, it passes.

I had a chance to think about this, because yeah and I think the journey for me was kind of three really different stages. And what's funny about it is that, if you'd asked me at any of those stages if I was being supportive and if I was supportive of trans young people, I would have said, yes. But kind of looking back, I can see that because it's changed over time sort of looking back at where I was in other stages, I can see that wasn't necessarily the case. So, the first stage when we learned that our daughter was trans we were very, very worried because her mental health was really poor so she was having a lot of suicidal thoughts and she was really depressed. And so we were really, really scared about that. And at that point, I was absolutely, one of my fears was that she wasn't really trans, that it was some sort of psychological thing that she was, it was a delusion. That wasn't really what was going on at all. And, at that point, I had a really kind of medicalised view of it, so I was desperate to get to the GIDS and get what at that time I would have called the diagnosis, because I was really, really worried that she thought she was trans, but she wasn't, if that makes sense. And then later on, when we got a bit further through, I was really, I believed that she was trans and there was sort of two things going on at once, so I was getting more informed and I was fighting a lot of battles for her and I was kind of making, I was doing everything I could to make sure that everything would be okay, so I was going into school and changing her name and having a fight with the bank and you know, all that kind of stuff. But then sort of alongside of that, I was really, really sad about it. I felt really, you know, I kept it secret from her at the time, but I was, I was really, really, I cried a lot and I was really terrified about what would happen to her in the future, you know, and I believed she was trans and I wished she wasn't. And not because I felt that it was a bad thing to be but because I thought it was, it was gonna be really difficult and her life was gonna be really difficult and I was really fearful about what would happen to her. And then sort of around that time, yeah, and I kind of, I kind of sort of believed that, you know, because she had gender dysphoria and she had a medical diagnosis, I was kind of well that proves that she is transgender. That was kinda where I was at that time. And I was also very concerned about things like oh, you know, she's never gonna pass as a girl and that's gonna be really difficult and that would be awful and you know, she's gonna have a really sad, you know, so it was that kind of thing. But also around that time, I started to suspect that what was happening at the Gender Identity Service wasn't right and it wasn't helping her.

So was she already in the care?

By that point she was, yeah, yeah. Yeah and so that was quite difficult and I was, I was kind of reading around a lot and you know, finding out stuff. And then the point where I am now is that in all that kind of binary thinking about, you know, are you trans or are you not trans or do you pass or do you not pass. You know, all that kind of stuff's really, it's really fallen away. And I just, I just think now that being trans isn't, it's not a good thing or a bad thing, it's just a thing. I think it's just a normal, completely normal variation in what human of how human beings can be. And so I just [sighs] she is really happy now. None of it seems like a big deal any more. It's not really a topic that we, not really a topic that we think about. We don't really talk about it. It's not, it's not really an important thing for us as a family at all. It's just, it's just a thing, she's just who she is. And yeah, as I say. And then, I mean, the only, you know, it's kind of like this whole thing about “oh, somebody might change their mind. They might desist” and all that kind of, you know, all those worries. I just think it's just, life's just a journey and you, you know, doing what you're doing at any, any given time. So now, we just all feel really comfortable with it and it's just not really a thing that, it's not really a thing that we even think about any more, really [laughs].

I think that's where, that's where something like Mermaids absolutely gets it right, because there's, there's this online forum so if you have a question you can just put it up there and then it's like a conversation and lots of people will come on and talk to you about it. And the fact that you can, you can go on the web chat or you can go on the helpline. And I think for young people and for families I think that's absolutely, you know, I think that's absolutely brilliant. And I think that's a fantastic approach. Whereas it's more a case of you talking to someone. You know, whether it's you're talking online or talking on a phone or whatever. You know, so that you can just speak to somebody, I think that's really, really helpful for people.

I would tell them to talk to other parents and talk to other trans and gender diverse young people. I would tell them to seek help if they need it. I would tell them that it's gonna be okay. And tell them it's gonna be fine. I would tell them not to worry. But I would also tell them, you know, if they go through a period when they're feeling really sad and you know, feeling bereaved, I would tell them not to beat themselves up about that, either.

I think yeah, I would, actually. When we were talking about, you know, accessing GIDS for children I really think, I mean, part of the problem with the [Gender Identity Development Service], of course, is that it's, it's only based in a few places. But I think, I think a massive issue is that it's a sort of, it's a psychological and psychiatric service isn't it, [Gender Identity Development Service], it's much wider than just Gender Identity Service and so it comes out of working with young people who have mental health problems. And I really think that that is not where, that is not where GIDS should be located for children. I think there should be another service or several other services where it's paediatricians and it's what do you call the department where they do blockers and all that kind of stuff?

Endocrinology.

Thank you. Yeah, endocrinologists and paediatricians and I think that's where it should be. I think that's where it should be located. I think that's one of the implications of saying that being trans is not a mental health issue. It's not. So why do you have to run the gamut of loads of psychiatrists and psychologists and things when actually what you need is practical support from a paediatrician and an endocrinologist.’