Experts present trans healthcare best practices to Irish politicians at Leinster House

On Wednesday, May 8, Transgender Equality Network Ireland (TENI) and Labour Senator Annie Hoey hosted an event at Leinster House, presenting Irish politicians and stakeholders with international best practice examples of trans healthcare.

Entitled Evolving models of trans healthcare, a possible future for Ireland?, the event was an opportunity for policymakers to hear from leading clinicians at two separate European gender-affirming services. The panel featured representatives from Indigo Gender Service in the UK and Trans United Clinic in the Netherlands, who informed attendees of their work before answering questions as part of an open Q&A session.

Indigo Gender Service is a primary care-led service delivered within Greater Manchester by a group of trained and supported GPs. The service provides care for patients locally, without requiring referral to a central specialist gender clinic.

It was set up initially by the NHS to tackle waiting lists and improve the quality of care through a holistic integrated service in partnership with the LGBT Foundation, one of the UK’s largest LGBTQ+ charities. Following a successful pilot, the NHS recently recommissioned the service for 5 years. 

Indigo currently treats roughly 480 people a year, and has managed to halve waiting lists from four to two years, earning widespread praise from clinical leaders and community members.

Trans United Clinic is a collaboration between the Trans United Europe-team and the Center for Sexual Health of the Amsterdam Public Health Services (GGD Amsterdam). It aims to deliver an informed consent model of care at a hyper-local urban level within the Amsterdam Metropolitan area.

It delivers care and support specifically to vulnerable and underserved members of the trans community, such as trans people seeking international protection. The service is delivered through a holistic integrated care model, providing access to wider wellbeing support and sexual health services all in one place.

Opening the event, Interim CEO of TENI Tara Hewitt explained: “We believe all people in Ireland deserve access to high-quality best practices like healthcare. At the moment we don’t think that’s the case for trans people.”

She added: “Ireland at the moment sadly ranks the worst for trans healthcare in the whole of Europe, and frankly, that just isn’t good enough.”

Hewitt commented that “nobody’s happy with the current status quo”, adding: “There’s been a promise from government to reform trans healthcare, it was in the LGBT Strategy, and we know that that hasn’t been delivered in line with international best practice.”

With that in mind, she passed the conversation over to the panellists, with the purpose of highlighting examples of successful models of trans healthcare. Particular emphasis was placed on the benefits of hormone therapy, engaging trans and queer people as well as GPs and debunking misconceptions surrounding the costs of trans healthcare. Following their presentations, audience members had the chance to ask questions.

According to Tara Hewitt, Wednesday’s event was the first in a series of conversations with policymakers that TENI hopes to host over the coming months. The briefing is available to watch in full on Senator Hoey’s Instagram.

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