PRESS RELEASE: "Transsexual leaders welcome NHS test case ruling"

Leaders of Press for Change, the UK’s transsexual rights campaign, today welcomed the High Court’s ruling that North West Lancashire Health Authority’s decision to refuse treatment for three transsexual women was unlawful. The three plaintiffs were identified only as A, D and G.

PFC vice-president Stephen Whittle said today:

“We are delighted that the three plaintiffs will at last be able to look forward to receiving the treatment recommended by their doctors. It’s also great news for many other transsexual people, whose treatment has been subject to delays way beyond the limits set out in the patients’ charter, as health authorities have either imposed blanket bans on treatment or set limits or conditions which effectively make it unavailable.

“This decision is good news too, for other NHS patients denied treatment by their Health Authorities: they too can look forward to having treatment being provided on the basis of clinical need rather than arbitrary policy.”

Gender reassignment surgery is one of the most successful forms of treatment offered by the NHS, with clinical studies recording satisfaction rates of up to 97%. It is sought by only a small number of people each year: best estimates indicate that there are in total only about 5,000 transsexual people in the UK, of whom only a small number seek medical treatment in any given year. It is also not expensive: for example, the total annual budget of the Gender Identity Clinic at the Charing Cross hospital, the largest such unit in the country, is only £325,000 per annum.

Stephen Whittle continued:

“The sums involved are very small, and this decision does not impose a significant burden on the NHS. Treating transsexual people accounts for only a penny or two in every thousand pounds of the NHS budget, but makes a huge difference to the lives of people who otherwise suffer intense distress.

“This decision is economically sensible as well as medically right: making people happy makes them better and more productive citizens. Transsexual people denied medical treatment all too often suffer depressive illnesses which create a much bigger burden on the NHS, and which prevent them from taking up employment — making them a burden on social welfare rather than the active taxpayers and good citizens they want to be.

Dr Lynne Jones MP, chair of the Parliamentary Forum on Transsexualism, said:

“We hope that North West Lancashire and other Health Authorities will follow the spirit as well as the letter of today’s judgment, and facilitate treatment instead of obstructing it.”

Background information:

The UK remains one of only four out of 39 countries in the Council of Europe which fails to provide full legal recognition in their new gender for transsexual people: the others are Albania, Andorra, and Ireland. This failure causes countless problems for transsexual people in their everyday lives.

Despite being issued with corrected passports and driving licenses reflecting their true gender, transsexual people remain legally in the gender assigned to them at birth. Apart from being unable to conduct a valid marriage, their tax and social security records retain the orginal gender, and insurance policies may be invalidated if they do not declare their legal status. If convicted of a crime, they risk being sent to a prison for the oppoosite sex, and any situation requiring the production of a birth certificate guarantees a breach of personal privacy.

The government insists that a birth certificate is not an identity document, yet civil service and public sector employers insist that it accompanies job applications.

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