A-Z

Experiences of trans and gender diverse young people

Getting support for mental health

Young people talked about many different ways of supporting their mental health. In this summary you can find out about the approaches young people have taken to support their mental health in the following ways:

  • Medication
  • Transforming body and mind
  • Support from friends and family
  • Community led services and activism

You can also find information on young people talking about their mental health here. Experiences of counselling and Children and Adolescent Mental Health Services (CAMHS) formed a significant part of the discussion.

Medication

Young people spoke about their feelings about medication and being prescribed or offered medicine to support their mental health. This was described by some as a positive step often if this was alongside other forms of support. Others had mixed experiences of medication. Bailey said the most helpful thing for supporting his mental health was, ‘physical intervention. So like medication and things like that. I don't feel like talking to anybody does anything.’

Some young people were not sure that medication was suitable for them, while others tried different types of medication. Bee said, ‘I am taking antidepressants and anti-anxiety medication and have been for a couple of years’. Rosa said, ‘I’ve been prescribed beta blockers for anxiety and some type of antidepressant’. She said, ‘beta blockers do help quite a bit with managing my anxiety with the physical symptoms of it and the antidepressants so far seem to be doing that’. Sophie said she has been ‘taking antidepressants for not only … tackling aspects of gender dysphoria but also [for] my general loneliness and depression.’

 

Jay shares their story about taking antidepressants combined with group therapy.

Jay shares their story about taking antidepressants combined with group therapy.

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I think I was 19 when I first started taking antidepressants. And I was put on them after just one appointment with my GP. I think, at the time, I just wanted a quick fix, which it wasn’t that. But I wasn’t even offered counselling or anything which really, I should have been. I then, years later, my parents paid for me to see a private counsellor and so that was because the waiting list for the NHS was at least six months at the time. And I’d been on about five different medications that weren’t working for me whatsoever. And then, this year was when I did the group therapy that was through the NHS. I was only on the waiting list for about two or three months, I think and that was an eight-week course. And I mentioned that I came off my antidepressants didn’t I. That was because I went to see my doctor and I was saying to her that they weren’t working for me and that I was feeling really anxious and she just said to me, well, if I was you, I would feel anxious too, if you can understand [Laughs]. And I was a bit like, well, that was rude. But at the same time, it made sense, because I’m like, a pill isn’t gonna fix my social anxiety when it is situational. I think that’s a big thing. A lot of time your kind of rushed through the system. Especially when it comes to medication when for me it definitely wasn’t the right thing.

 

Ezio talks about his GP confusing gender identity feelings with depression and being prescribed anti-depressants.

Ezio talks about his GP confusing gender identity feelings with depression and being prescribed anti-depressants.

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I think around my second year I went to my GP about getting like referred to the gender clinic and it was, it was kind of all good because sort of I went purely for that reason to be referred and he kept sort of looking through my notes and just bringing up the fact that I had depression and he just kept trying to like prescribe anti-depressants and it took me like it took about a good, I don’t know 20 minutes for him to actually be like no I just want you to refer me to the clinic

Some young people had negative side effects from their mental health medication. This included sweats. Sally said, ‘I’d been on antidepressants for a long time… and sort of half-way through the previous year I decided I’m going to come off them cos I don’t like being sweaty. I don’t want these SSRI (Selective Serotonin Reuptake Inhibitors) sweats all the time, and, yeah, I found it very difficult.’ Find out more about experiences of antidepressants

Transforming body and mind

Young people talked about their relationship with their bodies and how this related to their mental health (see Journeys to identifying as trans and gender diverse and Experiences of puberty and puberty blockers). One of the primary forms of support was seeing their bodies change through intervention such as hormone therapy and/or surgery.

Charke talked about their mental health after being on puberty blockers for a period of time. They said, ‘I think gender still does have an effect to an extent on my mental health, but I think I’m much more okay with that now.’ They continued, ‘I feel comfortable in just exploring gender, I don’t feel upset or depressed or anxious… I don’t feel like “oh my body’s not how I want it to be” I think I can deal with that and cope with that much better.’ M felt that, ‘having my top surgery has definitely helped and being on hormones’.

 

N says ‘I think that the thing that has shifted that depression most significantly is having surgery and having hormones’.

N says ‘I think that the thing that has shifted that depression most significantly is having surgery and having hormones’.

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I think that the thing that has shifted that depression most significantly is having surgery and having hormones. But it never felt like if I do this thing this depression will go away. It kind of just happened, and so like, it was like again like in that thing about your body knowing, it’s like I didn’t, when I was that depressed I don’t think I would ever have said to you I’m really depressed because I’m trans. I think I might have, that would have felt like one of the things I was depressed about, but it does also feel true now looking back that like I’m a lot less depressed as a person since having surgery and hormones. And so, I can only figure that that was causing a significant amount of that depression, that didn’t necessarily feel like it was about transness.

 

I don’t know if that really makes sense honestly, but it definitely feels very true. And I don’t think it’s the only thing that I was depressed about, but I do think the core, that core sense of like shame and I can’t be who I am, and I’m always having to hide who I am, in a really embodied way, not in a kind of , like it wasn’t like a conscious thought pattern, but like as a real emotional experience of the world as opposed to a kind of like, ‘This is who I think I am,’ experience of the world. Is really, is really at the core of a lot of that depression.

Young people also talked about the positive impact that sport and exercise had on their mental health. Begam said, ‘I think exercise has helped me’. Eel said, ‘I started climbing in September or bouldering and that just meant I got some physical exercise. It meant that I got to go out a bit more and it’s very enjoyable having that kind of space to just climb and not think about anything.’

June talked about a changing relationship to his body at university. He described going to the gym for the first time and ‘really enjoying having a new relationship to my body where it wasn’t sort of like ignoring it’. He could ‘see it changing as I’m sort of working out and I’m really enjoying connecting with it for the first time’.

 

Ezio says ‘I’ve been trying to eat a bit more healthily and leave the house a bit more often’ and be accepting of daily emotions.

Ezio says ‘I’ve been trying to eat a bit more healthily and leave the house a bit more often’ and be accepting of daily emotions.

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I think taking care of myself I think I’ve been trying to like sort of eat a bit more healthily and try and leave the house a bit more often, you know, because haven’t been working the past month and I think I’ve been trying to get back into doing things that I used to do but I know for me it’s been a lot of patience just sort of weighing out mental health problems because people think they’ll go away if you do these things, you know, if you eat right, if you exercise, if you socialise if you do all these things they go away and, you know, they don’t, that’s not how it works your brain will pretty much choose when it will go away. And sort of the past few months I think it’s been a lot of just accepting feelings as they come where like it you suddenly feel sad you shouldn’t feel ashamed about it you can just be sad if you’re happy for whatever reason like I think any sort of emotions you have that come your way just accept them, well that’s how we’re feeling today but I’m still gonna try and do these things, it’s a lot of self-motivation, it takes a lot of effort to work on but people I know who are older than me said that things do sort of settle down after a while, you learn how to be more of like an adult in a stereotypical fashion, you learn to do these things.

 

Begam talks about the benefit of exercise to their mental health and attending a ‘boxing academy’.

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Begam talks about the benefit of exercise to their mental health and attending a ‘boxing academy’.

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I think exercise has helped me, like exercise. Just another problem as well, you know, with the environment it was a boxing club, a boxing academy I used to attend. And the first day I went in there, these are like Irish people who are Irish professional like gang masters who are criminals or whatever in my opinion I got and I, they looked at me, the guys and they laughed, and then I said to them, “I’ve come to see you to do boxing.” But it was okay, fill in the form, I got the time filled out and everything but since then I haven’t gone back but I think doing physical activity on my own I think that’s helped but some of the environments you go into.

 

June talks about transforming his body through going to the gym and the benefit this had to his mental health.

June talks about transforming his body through going to the gym and the benefit this had to his mental health.

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I’m still kind of working out like kind of just like ramped up, I was working out like maybe three or four times a week because I guess, I was already like quite fit and so I was able to like, when I started going to the gym I started going like three or four times a week and I was like see how, let’s see how much I can push this because I like bought this, I bought an unlimited membership where I’m like I’m paying for it I might as well just go, so I started like going like maybe five or six times a week and so I was getting quite fit and also just kind of addicted to the boxing because of how it made me feel and also started getting a bit addicted to how my body was looking as well like the changing my body and I’ve always been like quite flat chested but I was noticing that my body was just getting sort of like quite yeah like lean and I was really enjoying like, well I was just, oh this is making me feel things I don’t, like I don’t, I mean I was just very used to either looking in the mirror to present myself as femme to kind of create this sort of like façade to the world that also gave me a certain kind of pleasure but not really paying much attention to my body like I always enjoyed fashion and dressing myself but not for the sake of like making my body look a certain way.

 

And just well not really like trying to kind of like not think about that actually I just kind of really like have any I don’t think I really had any relationship to like my body in terms of like you know, people like told me that this cis woman version of me that I was like sexy I think I really liked it I didn’t really understand it didn’t really compute because it like wasn’t something that I could see. So I felt quite like disassociated from it but then as I started to train and seeing my body change I really actually started developing a subjectivity in relation to my body where I would look at it and I’d be like okay this is making me feel good which is not something that had ever happened before because I, I remember I’d take notice of boys or girls or whoever I was seeing at the time and I’d just be like I don’t know how to do this I don’t feel, I don’t know what looks good and, and then I started realising what looks good to me was what I was actually achieving through going to the gym and boxing and I was, I think I became quite attached to going to the gym and changing my body and it made me become quite obsessive and also it was a way of spending time with myself with my relationship at home didn’t feel very good, it didn’t feel very healthy.

Some transmasculine young people spoke about treatments for body hair having an effect on their mental health. PJ said, ‘I think using Minoxidil (treatment for hair loss) as just something to get what I want has been really good for my mental health.’ 

Other young people we spoke to found being creative or practising mindfulness had a positive effect on their mental health. Tyra said that mindfulness helped her mental health. She said, ‘I tried to find myself spiritually [and] I’m still [following] that spiritual growth path.’ Cas said, ‘I have an Instagram account where I make comics that make me feel better. So drawing in general… takes my mind off it and it's something I enjoy doing. Writing it down about why I am feeling terrible or doing a drawing is quite good.’ Jacob found writing and performing songs to do with their mental health helped. Watching YouTube videos also provided a distraction and helped with anxiety.

 

Tyra talks about her journey with mindfulness and how it has supported her mental health.

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Tyra talks about her journey with mindfulness and how it has supported her mental health.

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It’s an interesting journey, isn’t it? Got my crystal in my hand, trying not to choke or cry, yeah, it’s interesting. I feel like… there’s a lot of different resources out there, there’s mindfulness that’s disconnecting and that I see as like disassociation and I don’t want to disassociate, I still want to be with myself, but also it’s, I have a vision and I see my vision and I know one day it’s going to get there, which is why I can say oh by the time I’m 30 this is what I’d like because I’ve closed my eyes so many times, and prayed and manifested like. Mindfulness it’s, it’s literally just not taking a razor to your hand, it’s breathing like there’s been a lot of times that I could just be like, oh, and I don’t want to be here anymore, like but I really, really think there’s a future version of myself that’s sat on the floor at peace with themselves praying heavily and that’s why I’m still here. Like cos I remember looking in my Nana’s mirror at her house when I was 15, saying like, “I don’t want to be here no more,” and being told, “Oh go get a job, go and do your beauty course and this will help you, and this will help you improve,” but it doesn’t really. And I still go back to this mirror, like I told her, “I want this mirror one day,” but, it’s a journey, it’s an interesting one and it’s good to be mindful, like it’s very hard, I’ve seen how other people struggle with it, and I just try to send the energy of healing to people. So that they don’t have to have the same feelings and thoughts, like I’m knowing they’re there, but, yeah, I just wish I could heal the world.

 

H talks about the lack of mental health support while waiting to be seen by the gender identity services.

H talks about the lack of mental health support while waiting to be seen by the gender identity services.

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So in regards to supporting mental health, basically there is none. Well not any that's provided by the NHS. Like say for example, it doesn't come as part of your care package, so you have to, in terms of mental health you have to seek that on your own through like support groups. Like in [City] there's, there's a support group although I don't really, I have spoke to them here and there at times to do sort of focus groups but not ever sort of for the support. But they have been encouraging me, you know I'm free to join whenever. But yeah this is really important because obviously the wait, the long periods of waiting to just have your first ever appointment you would think surely they would do something to support you. So while your referral’s there, it would make sense to have some sort of psychological support because obviously without you being seen most of the time you know you're not able to you know get on with things, unless you can afford the private healthcare. So yeah I mean with mental health services, even when you do have access to you know, crisis, mental health and things like that they don't actually, they're not trained in this sort of thing. I had to use a sort of crisis mental health service, this was maybe 2018. So I had a bad turn and I’d just had enough and long story short they basically found me and I was in a assessment unit for a week. So when I was there they didn't really speak to me much, they asked me what was wrong and I said to them I didn't have access to my hormones. Because at the time I had lost my job and I couldn't afford my private healthcare. So I said to them, “would they be able to get me the hormones?” And they said that “they'll see”.  And when they couldn't, basically the next day they said “no they can't get it”, obviously that wasn't all my troubles at the time because I was homeless at the time as well. So they just kind of told me they couldn't get it and they just kicked me out. They just said “you are fine” and they just sort of kicked me out. But obviously you know there was more to it than just the hormone situation but even with that they couldn’t, there was nothing they could do to even access this type of thing, like this type of medication. They didn't have any sort of therapy which was relevant to what I was going through. So there definitely needs to be, you know a specialised service for trans people. Even just LGBT as well, like because obviously trans people are not the only people who go through, you know a hard time in terms of you know pressure from society and things like that. So yeah definitely there needs to be something done because you know they say that the highest rate of suicide is within trans people and it literally does not surprise me. Being, you know myself I've been in that low position. So yeah I can only hope for the future that they start really investing into this sort of thing and training people and I hope that people are you know in those positions are interested enough to specialise in it because it will make all the difference while you wait.

Support from friends and family

A primary support for participants came from supportive friends and family members. Charke said, ‘my family really has been good especially my mum and my dad’. They said, ‘I really appreciate them being there through everything and helping me out so much.’

Friends gave essential support for many of our young people. Jacob said, ‘having friends around always helps…I kind of cut myself off [but] I've kind of been able to talk more recently.’ He added that, ‘having the internet, being able to go onto Facebook and gripe when I was 15 years old was quite useful. Just complain about the world and how my parents don't understand me'.

 

Finn values having ‘friends that look out for each other and checks up on each other’.

Finn values having ‘friends that look out for each other and checks up on each other’.

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I don’t think people quite know how decent having a good supportive group of friends is, because we all have friends and people we know. But having a really healthy supportive group of friends that [coughs] looks out for each other and checks up on each other and or like that doesn’t be kind of toxic behind your back or doesn't have a bad influence on your life, that’s really helpful. Obviously, it doesn’t cure anything. It doesn’t, it’s not like seeing a therapist, but it helps a lot and having people that take the time out of their day just to say, hey, how’re you doing? How are you feeling right now? How have you been like I was, I was ill off school the other day and I am just still evidently quite sick right now. And I think my mates, I think every single one of them just casually dropped the message just saying that they hoped that I was okay and that they wished me well. It’s very small things that make you feel supported and loved and cherished and valued, but small things go a long way and I think if people have these groups of friends and groups of healthy people around them where they feel like they can talk and reach out for support, that does a lot for you, even if you don’t realise it. And then, yeah. That’s one of the biggest things for me I think.

Rosa said support for her mental health comes ‘almost entirely just talking to my friends’. Noelle shared, ‘I’ve had to rely a lot on friends. I don’t know what I would have done without them.’ PJ said, ‘Surrounding yourself with a support network who know your identity, or don’t know your identity, and just know you as you are… is really helpful.’ He added, ‘it feels so validating to have people call you by your preferred name and pronouns, without a second thought really. Kat said, ‘I’ve just kind of been working through some stuff with my friends because we all have… a dedicated support area where people… get help with [their] problems.’ She added, ‘we all just kind of help each other out with stuff and it’s good.’

Some young people talked about combining forms of mental health support that proved helpful and effective. Cas said they ‘haven’t had much luck’ with the NHS mental health system, describing it as ‘not the best’. He said, ‘being able to get on the meds that I need and having [a] support network being around me and affirming me and being able to point out when my brain is being irrational as well is always quite helpful.’

Community led services and activism

The young people we spoke to pointed out that there is support for mental health in the trans community from local support centres and youth groups. Getting involved in political activism provided support for some as well. Jaz said, ‘a lot of the support that I’ve got is from friends or the [trans] community’. Kat talked about how her political activism has helped support her mental health. She said ‘I went quite left politically, I think that was definitely helped because kind of gives me something to discuss with people’.

 

Anderson talks about the activism and youth work they have done throughout their life.

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Anderson talks about the activism and youth work they have done throughout their life.

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When I was a younger teenager and stuff, I guess like I did a lot of like activism and youth projects and work within the City around the betterment of children’s care and health and lives and wellbeing in general. So I was involved with a lot of stuff anyway, but as I got older that got a lot more a part of my life and I guess it led me towards various services I suppose that were highlighting different queer issues or sexual health issues. So like I worked for an organisation called [organisation], when I was a teenager, and they used to do sexual health advice and like GUM clinic response access stuff, so like how well they dealt with trans patients, how well they dealt with couples that were same sex, how well they dealt with stuff in general to do with confidentiality , we did a lot of mystery shopping and stuff like that, and so like being engaged with that was something I was always really interested in and I’m still quite interested in it. I’ve noticed over the years that those kinds of services don’t really exist so much anymore and those like groups are dwindling, and if they are around, they’re not being signposted by young people. So like there were a few projects like the Seek Out project they used to run, provide like condom care and like STI health and safe sex stuff checks and they still exist, but they’re not as widely advertised in places anymore, and it’s like if you know you know, but if you don’t know you’re never going to find out about it. So yeah accessing stuff like that I feel like is quite a strange space, but I remember doing a lot of work towards that and I always felt like that kind of work was very important.

 

I spent a lot of time in schools and we’d go to youth groups doing things around, just talking about it, like other young people speaking to young people about sexual health was way less freaky than some teacher or an adult talking to them about it, and I feel like it’s kind of the same stuff with trans stuff, that like it’s much easier for us as trans people to be able to speak to other trans people about things that are going on. I find that accessing services that are to do with trans healthcare are really jarring because you often have to be thrust into a situation of dealing with cis people and their cis ideologies about what gender is and especially with like the NHS, like I’ve been through their service before and it’s a lot to be a very specific kind of trans and a very specific kind of person for them to be able to give you access to care, because you’re not able to pay for it yourself. So if you are in a situation where you’re not paying for it yourself, you have to go via the NHS route, there are these certain hoops that they make you jump through that are not fair barriers, I don’t think, when if given the alternative people would, well can just bypass that situation and still claim their identity as their own because nobody is taking it into question at that point. It’s about whether or not you can, you’ve got the money.

 

There are a number of youth organisations that I thought were really important, I remember accessing a group called [group] when I was a teenager, I was nearly what 14 when I joined this group, and took a number of people from my school and we had quite a good interaction with, they were just council member, like staff, but some of them were LGBT and we covered LGBT conversations and looked at things in the media, things that were happening at the time, things like Prop 8 which was happening at the time. It was like going on in America and Obama getting into power and like things that were happening in the UK based on like toilet bans and young people in school coming out, and how we interacted with the media on that stuff was focussed on that group.

 

There was like maybe, over the years they had that group for about ten-ish years, five, ten years, and they worked with a lot of young people from 13 to 25. When I was about 16, me and two of the other guys who were in the group were kind of calling out for more trans spaces to exist within that group, so they asked for a trans sub-group to be created and they created a group [group], it was very cool. We had a bi-monthly meeting and we met and chatted about tips like, crazy tips that young people don’t get access to, where you can buy binders that are cheap, like how to put on make-up and I don’t know, pluck your eyebrows and fix your face so that you look nice, and yes thank you, how to wear clothes that are gonna not show your hips, or whatever it is, like all these integral trans informations that you can kind of get off the internet to an extent, but having a face to face interaction, and I felt like a lot of the young people that we were engaging with at that point, were very isolated, like some of them came from very far away, and it was their only chance to come to a youth group and spend time in a space like that. They were very good at confidentiality, any residentials that we had, they was nothing on the consent forms that specified it was a LGBT group, there was nothing to say that your kid’s a big homo, and you need to go out and get them, or anything. Like it was all very genuine basis. I felt like the lack was where the counselling and the link between the services could happen, like the link to trans healthcare, like how could we get involved with trans healthcare.

 

There were places like Mermaids who worked with under 16’s, there are places like, under 18s sorry. There were places like CAMHS and stuff that do counselling, but like in general it’s very different, and Market Place, but like it’s very difficult for young people to get access to those kind of services, and then you know. So, after the conservatives got into power all of the funding got cut and it no longer was available for 25-year olds, so it then got cut to 18. I lost two of my youth workers it went from being like a group of 30 young people strong, to having one at someone’s meetings, youth workers that we don’t know, people who are not in the community, people who are not LGB, people who we haven’t worked with forever, and I find it very difficult to get my head around the idea that there’s no space for anyone who’s a young person between that age of leaving school, getting to Uni, getting to their new City potentially, like coming out and being alone, and not having a service that they could access. Like I could understand it if it was safeguarding and they needed to separate things, I could understand it if it was space or time-management stuff, but like it just came from budgeting and like we don’t have money to help you and your kids with their crap, so no. But it was a very successful group, and I felt like it was sad to see it go. They set up binder schemes, they set up, you know like, yeah, so many clever ideas came from that space that I think could have been utilised a bit better and maybe could come back again, if people pick up on this kind of stuff, you know.

 

Cassie talks about her support being ‘90% social’ through the trans community.

Cassie talks about her support being ‘90% social’ through the trans community.

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What’s been specifically helpful when supporting you in terms of mental health?

Other people. Other trans people, because you know, there is that just yeah, being able to identify having that shared experience and having that identification with other people about your experiences and yeah, yeah, I think that’s also been hugely important. And I don’t think it’s only just been with like other trans women. It’s also been with like just trans, trans people, generally. So everyone under the umbrella and so non-binary people and gender nonconforming people, people who aren’t even trans. You know like or wouldn’t define themselves as trans.] Yeah and like trans mascs and trans femmes and yeah, you know, my support is 90% social.

Most of the support young people gained in these ways were positive. Patrick talked about how he loved ‘being able to do trans youth work’. He said, ‘it’s just so rewarding’. Cassie said, ‘There’s stuff at the [local] LGBT centre which is run by trans people with other trans people [on] a volunteer, quite small basis and they’re usually once a month.’ She added that ‘mutual aid’ was also important within the trans community for supporting each other. Jack says, ‘I do feel recharged being around other trans people like there’s definitely, you know, a reminder that I’m not alone that I have solidarity with other Trans people…. and that we will be able to overcome the stuff.’

 

Charke says the ‘LGBT groups which I attend [are] really great…I can have a friendly conversation with someone who knows what I’m talking about.

Charke says the ‘LGBT groups which I attend [are] really great…I can have a friendly conversation with someone who knows what I’m talking about.

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LGBT groups which I attend they’re just really great because not only do you have youth workers who know what they’re talking about if you really need help or advice or something but also you can talk to other people who may be similar to you or even if they’re not similar to you, you tend to have common knowledge and be able to talk about the same issues and understand each other, and that can be nice and it’s, it doesn’t feel official, it doesn’t feel like oh I’m getting help from someone, you know, or it doesn’t feel like oh I’m going to my parents and being a pain, it just feels like hey I can have a friendly conversation with someone who knows what I’m talking about and who can maybe offer me advice because maybe they’ve gone through a similar, so that’s really helpful too.

 

Patrick talks about the support they found from the trans community and youth groups.

Patrick talks about the support they found from the trans community and youth groups.

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I think finding people that I could talk to as they kind of got it, so not so much sort of counselling in the like typical I go and talk about my problems and the person either just listens of maybe sometimes offers a little advice but someone who could actually really like bounce off what I’m saying and share their experiences as well and like talk through really constructively I found really useful. So I found working with one of my youth workers a lot more helpful because she was willing to share bits of her experience as well, it wasn’t just sort of like I was just talking about myself the entire time. And also talking to people, looking at it from like an academic point of view as well so like again my youth worker would sort of share pieces of theory with me and sort of we’d look at the way I’d interact in the way other people interact like really look at it from like not just from like a personal experience of like this person does this and it makes me feel like but academic point of view of like this is a theory of how people interact and being able to apply it when I’m in situations was really useful.

 

Jaz would like trans people to ‘not have to jump through hoops in order to acquire the things that we need’ and ‘healthcare built around trans people’s knowledge.’

Jaz would like trans people to ‘not have to jump through hoops in order to acquire the things that we need’ and ‘healthcare built around trans people’s knowledge.’

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I’d like to see the psychiatrists give up their power over us. I would like to see more trans, I’d like to see healthcare built around trans people’s knowledge and needs of ourselves rather than them just being about having power over us, and us having to jump through hoops in order to acquire the things that we need. I’d like to see more trans people involved in our healthcare, but not necessarily as like psychiatrists, cos we want to abolish psychiatrists, so maybe we don’t want to train as psychiatrists, that wouldn’t be great. Because we’ll be coming to you, and like yeah, it’d be like I generally want to see more just more trans specific services because I want trans services to be like available throughout healthcare services, you know, we need more like easy accessible things, and like I don’t, I feel like there are some things that are really specialist and they’re important, and when it comes to healthcare provisions but also like there’s loads of stuff that could easily be done through a GP, safely and that’d be great. And also like there’s a lot, I think there’s a lot of things about like oh, certain things are irreversible, and like sure, like surgeries maybe are quite, quite invasive and seemingly irreversible, seemingly, I have to say seemingly. But it’s, so much, so many things are like already framed around a fear of doctors getting sued, because, and not about like, and like that is like, I mean like that’s like a comment I’ve heard I think almost like, maybe, like most of the GIC people, people who work for GIC challenge, say, as it’s like are you more worried about that than actually providing the healthcare that people might need. And, but also it’s okay if people change, like if, like trans is about movement, it’s not just from like one direction to another, like it’s okay if, if hormones work for somebody for some part of their life, and then they decide oh maybe I don’t want to take these anymore. Like that’s fine, like, yeah. We just need to like just be facilitating more, a need for more options. Like people need options, people need to see opportunities, like it’s not, not everything is the end of, is like the life or death, like you know you do this and that’s it. It’s, cos it doesn’t work like that.

See also:

Hormones 

Experiences of surgery and recovery

Journeys to identifying as trans and gender diverse

Finding information

 

 

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