Trans people are waiting 3 years for medical care, self determination is the answer.
Trans Zorg Nu is organising a manifestation at the Dam, Amsterdam, to deliver the message that trans people should be given control over their own bodies, an improvement for all which would also solve the intolerably long waiting lists.
The waiting lists for the genderteams reached record lengths this month. Patients getting referred now face 3 years of waiting at Radboud UMC and 2.5 years at UMC Amsterdam following by another 6 months between their first appointment and their second.
The cause of this is a system based on the idea that trans people can not make informed decisions about their own bodies and need to be deterred from seeking care. As a result trans people are given a 3 year sentence of waiting for transition care that they desperately need. The suffering this causes can have dire consequences. This system and its effects are inhumane.
Reform or re-allocation of government funds to ‘’shorten the waiting list’’ won’t fix this. A total overhaul of the way trans people are given medical care is needed.
We demand:
-No waiting lists 
The waiting lists are a problem which the genderteams themselves have created in order to justify its patronizing treatment of trans people, by demanding an extensive and entirely unnecessary diagnostic process.
-No diagnosis, complete self determination for trans people
Trans people know their own body and identity and should not have to justify their gender to a psychiatrist or conform to their sexist idea of what a man or woman looks, acts and feels like.
-Decentralise trans care, break the monopoly
Allow trans people to access hormones through their GP as well as referrals to local speech therapists, dermatologists, psychologists etc., without a nonsense diagnosis from a genderteam.
-Transgender care in transgender hands
Prioritize health care practitioners who are transgender themselves. The current system bars trans people from positions of responsibility over medical transition, which is outright a policy of placing the opinions of cisgender people over the experience of transgender people.
On Sunday, February 6th 2022 at 13:00, Trans Zorg Nu! will hold a manifestation at the Dam, Amsterdam, to protest the long waiting lists and the injustices in our health care and to demand better care based on self determination. More info to follow.
Extra: self determination for all.
Whenever we say ‘Self-determination for all!’, there are always people who question just what we mean by ‘all’… so we’re answering some of the most common questions here to let you know where we stand.
– What about people who are not sure?
Self-determination is all the more important for those who are still on a journey of self-discovery. Taking decisions out of their hands and placing them in the hands of a psychiatrist is not helpful. Those who want support and guidance should have access to those things. That can be in the form of help from a support group, a mutual aid network or a psychologist. As long as they get the support they need to make their own decisions.
– What about minors?
Self-determination is all the more important for minors. Going through a puberty that doesn’t fit you can be torturous and causes irreversible changes. No one should be forced to grow up like that.
If transphobes who ask “what about the children?” truly believed that young people can’t make decisions about their own body, they’d put ALL teenagers on hormone blockers until they’re old enough to know they’re ‘really’ cisgender. But they do not want this: only trans youths are unreliable. So their concerns are bullshit.
If we care about the well-being of minors, we should allow them to choose hormone blockers and/or HRT.
– What about people with psychiatric issues?
Self-determination is all the more important for people with psychiatric labels too. A lot of violence can currently be done to psychiatric patients in the name of ‘protection’. Denial of access to transition is just one more of these. The idea that institutions should be able to ‘protect people from themselves’ is far more dangerous than having the agency to make your own choices, including your own mistakes. Again: support should be available for those who want it.
– What about chronically ill people who can not transition?
Self-determination is all the more important for chronically ill people. We cannot decide for others what defines their quality of life. Having to choose between your health and your transition is heartbreaking, but it is your own choice.