Congress Paper Abstract

Scotland’s transsexuals - towards a national gender dysphoria service?

Dr. Susan V Carr 

The access to treatment of gender dysphoria in Scotland in haphazard. Patients find their way to interested clinicians sometimes by General Practitioner or Psychiatric referral, or more often by word of mouth, a self help group or the internet.

There is little knowledge by clinicians of local services and patients can travel long distances to be seen. This lack of co-ordination leads to frequent inappropriate referrals leading to delays in diagnosis and treatment. This causes the transsexual unnecessary stress and prolongation of their real life test.

In order to improve the situation a multi-disciplinary group was convened under the Scottish Needs Assessment Programme (SNAP) to produce a report on transsexualism in Scotland.

The group consists of a male to female transsexual, an administrator and a research assistant as well as representatives from psychiatry, sexual medicine, psychology, speech therapy, general practice and gynaecology. They come from different parts of the country and represent both urban and rural areas.

The ultimate aim of the group is to describe the prevalence of gender dysphoria in Scotland and make recommendations for service provision.

Preliminary findings suggest that ongoing facilitation of treatment and assessment should be available locally in the form of a national gender dysphoria service.

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