Transgender People: Provision of Healthcare

Vikki Slade Excerpts

Tuesday 16th December 2025 Westminster Hall

[Vikki Slade (Mid Dorset and North Poole) (LD)]

It is a pleasure to serve with you in the Chair, Mr Turner. I thank the hon. Member for North Warwickshire and Bedworth (Rachel Taylor) for such a passionate, incredible speech. Although she focused on adults, I would like to talk more about young people.

I am not sure whether the recent outrage about the puberty blockers trial is a result of misunderstanding, or whether those who do not accept that trans people have a right to affirmative care are simply using it as another opportunity to cause distress and harm to young people who are already marginalised and deeply frightened about their future. I am going to be generous and say it is the former, and I will help by providing some clarity.

Puberty blockers have been used since the 1980s. Although in a small number of high-profile cases, an individual has transitioned back to the gender assigned at birth, the vast majority do not. An Australian study found that 5% ended up identifying with their sex assigned at birth, but only 1% of those did so after receiving puberty blockers or hormone replacement therapy. The others did so during their initial assessment at the clinic. That is significantly lower than the regret rate for breast implants, tattoos or any other change to someone’s body. Puberty blockers are not permanent; they are to delay puberty and pause development.

Imagine a young transgender child who starts to live as a boy as they end the primary phase of their education—taking part in boys’ sports and changing their name on documentation—then having to contend with breast growth and menstruation at school. Or think of a teenage trans girl, who is fully accepted by her friends, suddenly experiencing the growth of facial hair and a dropping voice, and waiting years for an appointment. Imagine how they feel sick, showering a body that physically repulses them, binding to ensure they pass among their friends, and hiding from any situation where they are exposed.

Children whose puberty is advancing too quickly can access these drugs, but trans children cannot. When the drugs were banned last year and the Government announced that there would be a trial, I thought that those who genuinely wanted fair and safe healthcare for trans children would have welcomed it. Instead, they described those children as guinea pigs. The trial must go ahead and needs to be expanded.

[Tom Hayes (Bournemouth East) (Lab)]

Trans healthcare is challenging to access and afford. Waiting lists are ludicrously long and treatment options are limited. There is a massive gap between the treatment that trans people need and what they are being offered. Does the hon. Member agree that, as we just heard from my hon. Friend the Member for North Warwickshire and Bedworth (Rachel Taylor), trans people are human beings who deserve to be treated as such, with equal access to healthcare?

--- Later in debate ---

[Vikki Slade]

I thank my neighbour for his intervention. Of course they are people; they are our friends, family and neighbours. Puberty blockers are of no use once someone reaches 16 or 17, as by that time the damage is done. The hon. Member for Sleaford and North Hykeham (Dr Johnson) may pull a strange face at me but, frankly, for those children the damage is often done. They have often attempted suicide multiple times and their lives have been damaged. All they want is access to the support, the hormones and the treatment that they should be entitled to. When they reach 17 years and nine months, however, they are transferred to adult services. In some cases, they have been waiting since they were 12 or 13, only to be told that the south-west of England is currently dealing with referrals from 2017. That is simply not acceptable. We know it is dangerous for people to wait long periods. Coroners repeatedly refer to long waiting lists in the context of trans people’s deaths.

In my last few seconds, I want to address shared care. A constituent of mine, a trans man who transitioned at about 18, has had NHS care in place for many years. He has now been told by his GP that they will not offer him shared care. He has been told that the practice has had a letter from the gender identity clinic saying that the practice does not have the systems, capacity or expertise in place to provide the level of monitoring and care. That is simply unacceptable. This is NHS care. My constituent has NHS prescriptions. Now his own GP says that they will not support him, despite being required to do so. I ask the Minister to look carefully at this issue to ensure that trans children get the services they need and trans adults continue to receive them.