Transsexuals and Sex Reassignment Surgery

Foreword (by Press for Change) to an internal report produced by Suffolk Health Authority, May 1994

This report was produced within the NHS Health Authority for Suffolk to advise the authority’s management on whether and how to treat UK citizens within its catchment area if they presented with Gender Identity problems.

The report was clearly not intended for public consumption and its very existence is contentious, since it raises the question why a particular clinical procedure should have to be justified in ways (and in terms) that others are not. It is a founding principle of the UK’s National Health Service that all treatments are available on the basis of a patient’s needs.

In terms of clinical accuracy and rigour the report leaves some aspects to be desired too. Worse, we are treated (at one point) to a vision of clinical cynicism at its most cavalier, when the authors observe that merely preventing the suicides of those denied treatment would not be a sufficient reason for funding it … since the numbers saved would not make a significant impact on the region’s targets in that respect.

For all that, it is at least a start and, in a climate where too many UK health authorities refuse to even contemplate treatment, the welcome conclusion of this report is that Suffolk should do so.

Perhaps peer review of the authors’ clinical research can improve the next edition. Perhaps it may be a model inspiring specialists in other regions to fight for the right to treat their patients in a humane and fair manner. Perhaps future reports may display more respect for the dignity of the people who own the health service.

One has to start somewhere though.

Read the report itself (50Kb)