Transgender People: Provision of Healthcare Debate
Full Debate: Read Full DebateDepartment: Department of Health and Social Care
Carla Denyer
Main Page: Carla Denyer (Green Party - Bristol Central)Department Debates - View all Carla Denyer's debates with the Department of Health and Social Care
(1 day, 8 hours ago)
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Carla Denyer (Bristol Central) (Green)
It is a pleasure to serve with you in the chair, Mr Turner.
It is a pleasure to represent a constituency with a thriving trans community. Too often, however, when I hear from trans people who live in Bristol Central or their loved ones, it is because they are struggling to access healthcare. Whether they are stuck on a waiting list to access a gender identity clinic or whether they are a parent looking for support for their child who is questioning their gender, again and again, trans people are refused healthcare that they are entitled to.
Despite the invaluable work of organisations such as TransActual and Stonewall nationally, and Trans Pride Bristol and Trans Aid Bristol in my home city, investment is not being made in public services; instead, trans people find that their rights are sacrificed to the same culture war that scapegoats migrants and people of colour.
When I speak to young trans and gender-questioning people and their families, a major concern is the ban on puberty blockers. Many were heartbroken when the Labour Government made the Conservatives’ temporary ban permanent, rather than rolling it back. That forces young people to go through puberty in a body that does not match their gender, as we have heard. I strongly urge the Department of Health and Social Care to think again on the puberty blocker ban.
I welcome the announcement of the pathways trial, which will give some young people a route to access puberty blockers. I asked the Secretary of State a year ago to clarify the size of the trial, and he assured me in the main Chamber that it would be uncapped. Yet it turns out that the trial will allow just 226 young people to take part. Please will the Minister explain why the numbers were capped, contradicting what I was told in the Chamber last year? Will she also respond to concerns that young people are being pressured to take part in the research because it is the only way to access the care they need?
Healthcare is no better for trans adults. As we have heard, waiting lists for gender identity clinics are unmanageable, with an eight-year wait in the south-west. Coroners have repeatedly referenced the length of such waits following trans people’s deaths. As a result, more than half of trans people have used private healthcare, creating a two-tier system for a community that already faces economic disadvantage. While I am pleased that a pilot wellbeing programme will be introduced for those on the waiting list, that is no replacement for getting trans people the timely healthcare that they need.
Trans people face more barriers to accessing healthcare than I have time to cover in this speech, but I want to highlight that I have had plenty of casework about shared care agreements that have suddenly been stopped, even for people who had accessed healthcare successfully for years through their NHS GP. The Levy review on adult gender dysphoria services might cover some of the issues, but I hope that it will cover all of them. I would like to hear from the Minister when that review will be published, if possible.