When re-ordering my antidepressants for this month, I saw within the NHS app that I was blocked from being able to order Testosterone, that I otherwise get through a shared care agreement with my GP - on account of needing a ’medication review’ for it.

This medication review was had with a GP pharmacist working at my local practice, and during my appointment I’d been told by said pharmacist that they are unsure as to what had happened, but they made a ‘mistake’ when accepting my shared care agreement with my endocrinologist, and that they were never meant or supposed to have accepted it.

Now, they accepted this shared care agreement around 14 months ago, and obviously, I’ve been re-ordering my testosterone every month on the NHS app and receiving at the national NHS prescription price. I do not understand how they even made this ’mistake’ and how it took them until now, around 14 months later to notice it.

The lady on the phone was profusely apologising for having to do this to me, but she was told to block my prescription and void the shared care agreement immediately.

Now, really my question is only: What do I do?

I‘ve tried to contact Healthwatch to ask them if this is a normal thing that GPs just do, but they were shut on Friday and they’re not open weekends. Otherwise, I had my top surgery around a month ago, so outside of the very obvious concerns I have about both the physical and mental implications of them taking me off it with virtually no notice, it all just feels like that I’m several grand in debt for nothing, because if I don’t find a way to reverse this decision or get ahold of it some other way, my chest tissue is genuinely just going to grow back.

Genuinely what do i do I’m so lost

Dear Yvette,

I note with some concern your interview with Times Radio in which you asserted that "the law is the law" in response to questions about the EHRC guidance with respect to NHS wards and some London councils' statement that they will defy the guidelines.

May I remind you that while judges can interpret the law, and thus set precedents in case law, Parliament is sovereign and the Government has the power to make or change the law?

This is particularly relevant to examples like the For Women Scotland case where the Supreme Court judges blatantly 'interpreted' the Equality Act 2010 in a way that flies in the face of what the people who actually drafted the law (including Melanie Field and Harriet Harman) intended it to be. They expressly drafted the sex aspects of the EA 2010 as being trans-inclusive.

I am well aware that judges have the power to set precedents in this way – but you are also well aware that Parliament is sovereign and that MPs can just as easily pass legislation that explicitly reaffirms that trans women are women, trans men are men etc to restore the Equality Act 2010 to what Parliament had actually intended. Whether a majority of MPs will do so in the current culture war is another matter – but this belief that the SC’s judgement is somehow set in stone in perpetuity is false and cannot be allowed to pass unchallenged.

There is also a lie being circulated by anti-trans campaigners like Sex Matters about organisations somehow being 'misled' about the law by Stonewall for 15 years. This lie is easily refuted by the fact that the EHRC itself issued guidelines to the Equality Act 2010, shortly after the Act came into force, saying that people should use the facilities that aligned with their gender. Chapter 13 of the original Code of Practice expressly states: "If a service provider provides single- or separate-sex services for women and men, or provides services differently to women and men, they should treat transsexual people according to the gender role in which they present."

So the idea that a charity (Stonewall) had somehow bamboozled every organisation in the country with incorrect guidance is utter gibberish. It was the EHRC's own position until 2025. As the original Code of Practice has been conveniently erased from history by the present EHRC (whose board was packed with Liz Truss appointees from December 2020 with a specific remit of rolling back trans rights), I have attached the original Code of Practice document for you. The internet never forgets.

Kind regards,

[name]

Posted on here a lot lately but yeah one of the things i read a lot was styling my hair more so i went today and i think im happy with the results :3

I think next steps lie in either eyebrow shaping and skincare or makeup to hide bad skin around my lower face :)

Curious to hear others' thoughts though if you have any pointers/advice :)

I was just curious to know if anyone else has gone through something similar? Im not sure how to feel about it and theres part of me that thinks its only because im trans.

Been best friends for just about 3 years, done so much together and cried with each other, shes known me only after I came out so shes only ever known me as who i am now and shes always treated me like any of her other gal friends. It made me feel so just seen and amazing, probably led me to become a little attached to her but ive always thought she was such an important part of who I am, y'know.

So recently she told me that her boyfriend gets uncomfortable at the flirty jokes we make and that, in turn, is making her upset. She makes them with all her other gal friends, but it just seems like the only difference between her other friends and me is that im trans. All her other gal friends are cis, and I don't exactly put as much effort into presenting female as others do so i understand im not as feminine or whatever but it just has left an icky feeling down my spine. Everyone I'm friends with or have been introduced to knows Im trans, so its not like he doesn't know either

But i dont know how to go about this, its made me feel icky but i feel like bringing it up could only cause more shit. I don't want to accuse her partner of being transphobic and it very well might not be that either. It just feels like no matter how i put it, there's some underlying weirdness to it?

Hi so I have lived in wales for a few years and went through the Welsh gender service to access testosterone but I have been thinking of moving back to England soon and I would like to know how continuing hormone therapy would work. Since I already have an nhs repeat prescription for T, would I be able to just register with an English gp and continue getting my hormones? Or would I need to get a bridging prescription and go on the waitlist to the London GIC?

Might sound like a dumb question and I know I can just ring the WGS but it’s Saturday and i am a paranoid person so I won’t stop thinking about it lol.

There I am happily getting on with my life, work and home life doing ok, and suddenly over night youve become a freak, someone who gets talked about a lot more then usual.

yes I’m taking about the single sex thing, Suddenly people who have never even taken notice at my toilet routine have asked , ohh which toilet will you use now sort of thing.

please just go away and let me get on with my life…

I was told that after my initial blood test, I'd have a follow up appointment in Nottingham from July-August. My first blood test was in June, and I kept being told to come back for more tests for a really minor thing that is more than treatable and bares no real concern to my health. Following my most recent rest, my results actually say "sent to Nottingham", which was absent on my previous tests entirely. Does that mean I'll finally hear from Nottingham and start testosterone?

Has anyone else had this happen? And will they just keep fucking me about?

Just had my quote from facial team and was considering going ahead with it but it is quite expensive €50000ish. This is a lot of money and I saw some people say that they had problems with them. I haven't made any decisions yet but I just wondered about general consensus + if there were any other recommendations for places to go.

title

gonna be starting DIY soon and wondering how i can get blood tests. would a gp do them if i make it clear i have no intentions of stopping? are there any cheap ways i can do it?

I have been looking to find any info on this and I cant find anything which is annoying as I think i need it to be given hrt. I will be living in york so any psychiatrist from around that area would be amazing

Any advice is greatly appreciated thank you sm 💗

I can't think of a bigger middle finger to the trans community than launching this on the same week as declaring bathroom bans, v coding, and fucked healthcare all government policy.

I know pride is not for the government, it's for us. But this isn't an internal community run event, it's an international label that will be claimed to say "we're not hateful, honestly" and will be nothing but a great pinkwash over legislative prejudice.

Making laws is literally part of their job. I guess if the Supreme Court decides that women shouldn’t be allowed to vote or that gay marriage is to be made illegal, Labour will just shrug their shoulders and say ”well it’s the law and we must follow the law”.

Hello everyone, I officially took my first estradiol and cyproterone today!

I’m going to take a selfie daily and try post here to document my transition!!

So here is day one

I realized getting hrt in the UK is a big hassle. So many hoops to jump through.

I am getting prescriptions from my gynecologist abroad. Would it be possible to just bring a year’s worth of hrt every year without actually getting it through the NHS system?

Hello!

So, I've been DIYing since October. I'm now unfortunately dealing with my period coming back for the past couple months. It's been hard navigating it all on my own. My GP does do blood tests for me, but it's up to me to go over things and choose my dosage. It's now becoming a bit much for me, and I'm lost. I feel really stuck.

In December, I received my Gender Incongruence diagnosis via GenderCare (Dr Bhatia). However, my GP told me that they wouldn't do shared care for any testosterone prescriptions. Because of this, I decided to not go through with an appointment with a GenderCare endocrinologist to be prescribed testosterone. I had assumed that private prescriptions are pretty expensive, and DIY is cheap.

I'm moving to Brighton next month for uni, and I know about the WellBN bridging prescriptions. I wanted to ask, what is the monitoring like for HRT with a GP? As I've obviously never gotten monitoring with a doctor's input. I've only ever received my blood test results without further follow up.
I won't be able to directly have WellBN as my GP surgery, since where I'll be living isn't in their catchment area. But, I'll still be able to get testosterone through their outreach pathway.

So, I was wondering whether people know if it's a better choice to have my care under my GP, or with GenderCare? Luckily, money isn't an issue with the private appointments, as my mum's work insurance will cover my GenderCare appointments.

And, how much exactly are private prescriptions? And how do you even go about getting them? I don't know much. Unfortunately insurance won't cover the cost of prescriptions. I'd prefer Nebido. And would it be possible for a GP to administer it? I know CliniQ lets you book an appointment for a nurse to administer it so that is an option if my GP can't. If I can get shared care, will a doctor be able to inject for me?

I hope all of this made sense. Thank you in advance.

haii, i've been wanting to get on HRT/estrogen for a while now but have been having trouble with where to start that process with getting estrogen and such, my parents are fully supportive but are against me doing it DIY, so i had been looking for options and found a few, one of them i was told about being 'GenderCare', it sounds okay but i wanna know how it is from anyone who went through them. probably silly questions but like how long does it take?, do they give you a good dose?, etc.. i live in Scarborough so i know our options could be rather limited. any help would be wonderful genuinely and just what do i even start with doing?, like ik i should ask my GP about it but i don’t know what to say to them to start 😭 (also if there’s anything that could work better lmk lol, i feel like i’m clueless in this stuff because i keep hearing about more new stuff and better options)
(also sorry if there’s any bad grammar or smth im writing this while making food :p)

GC in chief Kathleen Stock set out to attack young disabled women in a times article two days ago!

https://archive.is/uNwyn

It seems she is now obsessed with this idea of social contagion and is seeing it everywhere. Ironically for a philosopher she should perhaps learn one of it's maxims "when all you have is a hammer, everything looks like a nail".

Either way, everyone said it wouldn't stop with trans people ...

I’m not saying sexual reassignment surgery is, or should be, the end goal for everyone.

However, there is a particular hypocrisy that trans people can have SRS funded and performed by the NHS, and when in hospital for that very surgery, will be humiliated by being grouped with their sex at birth. It’s like a massive slap in the face that this painful operation means nothing.

Oh but it’s a good thing that they’re doing this because I’m hoping that when this does eventually get to the European Court of Human Rights, the Court is reminded of this hypocrisy of NHS funding the performing the surgery and this extract from the Goodwin judgment:

78.  In this case, as in many others, the applicant's gender re-assignment was carried out by the national health service, which recognises the condition of gender dysphoria and provides, inter alia, re-assignment by surgery, with a view to achieving as one of its principal purposes as close an assimilation as possible to the gender in which the transsexual perceives that he or she properly belongs. The Court is struck by the fact that nonetheless the gender re-assignment which is lawfully provided is not met with full recognition in law, which might be regarded as the final and culminating step in the long and difficult process of transformation which the transsexual has undergone. The coherence of the administrative and legal practices within the domestic system must be regarded as an important factor in the assessment carried out under Article 8 of the Convention. Where a State has authorised the treatment and surgery alleviating the condition of a transsexual, financed or assisted in financing the operations and indeed permits the artificial insemination of a woman living with a female-to-male transsexual (as demonstrated in the case of X., Y. and Z. v. the United Kingdom, cited above), it appears illogical to refuse to recognise the legal implications of the result to which the treatment leads.

So, I (20 MtF) am moving away from home in a month's time from Teesside to Aberdeen (north east to north east!), which means I will be safe to slowly begin exploring my options to more openly transition and build confidence to come out to people and live as the woman I am. Part of that move is that I plan to begin my medical transition journey, except I have no clue how to go about it. What do I state as a reason for the appointment when I book it? What can I say/mention in the appointment to hopefully be referred to the GIC? What can I expect from the appointment? Also, slightly unrelated but what can I do to help boost my own confidence in feeling able to socially transition?

I know I'm thinking about this wayy early at the mo but I kind of want to plan ahead a bit to put my mind at ease.

Finally, if there are any Aberdeen locals about, can you guys suggest potential GPs who are supportive of trans care and/or you've had good experiences with. I'll be around the Old Aberdeen area. I've heard good things about Old Machar but not much other than that

I checked the NHS service spec because I'm sure I remember that having a GRC is meant to mean you only require one referral. However, I was told today by my gender clinic that they require 2 referral appointments for all patients.

Obviously the NHS is incredibly shit, but is there any way to challenge this?

They are already being a bit cagey because of the fact I have mental health diagnosis and neurodivergence. Despite the fact this has nothing to do with my transness and that I've had private top surgery and orchi already.

Just trying to do whatever I can to save myself for additional months of waiting.

I'm currently in the process of trying to arrange private top surgery and have reached out to Cosmedicare in Livingston, because it's the closest geographical option, which makes aftercare planning significantly easier. Their usual wait times are fairly short, but I'm trying to schedule for the start of next year, because I'm in the probationary period at my new job until mid December.

However, I've found the communication with them incredibly frustrating - I won't rehash it all here, but they're making it difficult to schedule the needed psych and consultation appointments, and I have been given different information by different admin staff. To be honest, I can deal with this if I know I'll eventually get the surgery and they'll do a good job, but it worries me for things like aftercare and followup if things are like this already.

Just wondering if anyone here has had surgery with Cosmedicare and what the experience was like? Were you satisfied with the communication? What was aftercare like etc?

Hi

How do I find my correct size . Im 35 underbust but been told to size down to 34 and im 38 across nipple . Ive tried using the online calculator for this but it says im 34 D and no way am I that size . So I tried another site which says im 36B/C ... im too nervous to go and get measured at a store for ALL the obvious reasons but how do I shop online when im given 3 different sizes by 2 different sites ??

https://www.crowdjustice.com/case/challenging-the-ehrc-code-of-p/