Faced with NHS waiting lists stretching years into the future for ‘lifeline’ care, a transgender man from Newcastle is appealing for help to live as ‘his body tells him that he is right”.
Joshua Gordon, 19, has launched a fundraising campaign to fund transition surgery which he says would make a huge difference to his mental health.
In the North East appointments with the NHS Northern Region Gender Dysphoria service take years to arrive – in March 2022 the person at the top of the list for their second appointment (the first diagnosis or any treatment plan could be available) had waited more than five years, the wait for surgery was probably much longer.
Read more: Five-year NHS waiting lists leave the lives of transgender people in the North East ‘in limbo’
Unable to wait out the years of being trapped on the NHS waiting list, Joshua once sought out private healthcare to provide gender-affirming hormone treatments. In just 10 weeks of taking these, he’s already shelled out £465 and knows those costs will continue.
While the hormones have already had a positive effect, like many transgender men, Joshua desperately wants to have “top surgery”, removing breast tissue to make the chest appear more masculine. But with surgeons citing a likely price of £8,000, the tax credits worker asked for help to cover the staggering cost.
(Photo: Joshua Gordon)
He said: “That’s how the NHS is at the moment, they’re so underfunded and there’s not a lot of support there. If I had to wait I don’t know what I would would do, I don’t know if I could do it.
“Going private is really expensive, even for hormones it’s crazy. Worth it for me but it’s hard. I have a job but before I started hormones I was struggling to stay at work due to my mental health a lot reflects that I was unsuccessful [as a man], that I had no hormones and that I could not have surgery. One thing affects the other, so it gets really difficult.
“I don’t live with my parents or anything, I have all my bills and rent to pay and in April with all the prices going up it became even more difficult.”
Joshua, who was born in Ireland, has known who he was for most of his life and tried to come out when he was 14, but found he wasn’t sure yet. to be himself. He was able to start presenting himself openly as a man less than a year ago, after moving to Newcastle, and although some things have become easier since then, he still faces challenges and a certain discrimination.
He said: “In Ireland it’s not really that safe, I couldn’t really tell people, not many people knew. Here there’s a different point of view and it’s a bit more tolerant, but it’s still not easy.
“Being able to have surgery would make a huge difference, even just for work, the way my colleagues see me and how people see me when I go out on the streets. I’ve been on hormones for ten weeks and they’re already making a difference , but with people who don’t know me, it’s maybe 50/50 recognizing me as a man, which is obviously quite upsetting.
“The way I always explained it to my partner was how she would feel if she went out and felt like herself and knew what she was supposed to look like, but everyone was telling her that she was a man, and then she had to pay loads of money to get people to recognize her as she was?”
Joshua, who shares parts of his transition journey on TikTok as jgxrdxn, said that despite the cost, long waits and hardships he faces, getting out and living as himself has been worth it.
He said: “I never thought I would get to the point where I was on hormones. There was a time in life where I never even thought I could date and it’s been so good better, even if there is still a long way to go.
“Being able to transition has been a lifesaver for me, I don’t know where I would be without it.”
While transgender people have recently been excluded from the government’s planned ban on conversion therapy against the advice of medical and mental health bodies, and a number of high-profile figures publicly oppose transgender rights, Joshua is all too aware that many people still do not. understand why transition and the medical care to support it are so important to people like him.
“It doesn’t have to be so taboo – it’s like you’re told when you’re younger, ‘treat people the way you want to be treated,'” he said.
“We just try to be ourselves and live how the bodies tell us it’s okay.”
Asked about the years-long waiting lists transgender people face for care, a spokesperson for the Department of Health and Social Care told ChronicleLive that the number of referrals has increased “exponentially” these last years.
They added: “We take the psychological impact that waiting for gender identity services can have seriously and we work hard to ensure that people can access care when they need it. To speed up access, we…
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Source: www.chroniclelive.co.uk
This notice was published: 2022-05-15 11:00:00
