In November and December, Principle 17 delivered five workshops with the theme ‘Trans health care, but differently’. During this tour, we met over 40 people, each with their own questions and concerns. All participants were explicit about one thing: trans health care in the Netherlands needs to be much better!

All the workshops started with the question: what do you think of trans health care in the Netherlands? The answers were clear: “Waiting times are far too long!” “We do not have equal rights!” “Decisions are made about you, not with you!” “Degrading!” “The communication by the gender team is poor!” Many objections about trans health care in the Netherlands were also evident from our research ‘Trans health care in the Netherlands’ (2017). Sadly enough, little has changed since then.
One important issue has been changed: the waiting times are dramatically longer. The waiting times are currently 4 years and 3 months for an intake in Amsterdam and 2 years and 11 months for an intake in Nijmegen. And after that intake you are put on the waiting list for consultations with a psychologist. In Amsterdam, this waiting time is at least 1.5 years. (Nijmegen does not specify this additional waiting time.)

The workshops made it painfully clear that Dutch health care applies double standards: rules apply to cisgender care recipients, but very different rules often apply to transgender care recipients. For example, trans care recipients are the only patient group in the Netherlands that needs a psychiatric diagnosis to receive physical health care. Furthermore, trans care recipients must meet BMI requirements, while cisgender care recipients are given very different (or even no) BMI requirements for similar operations.

In the workshops we gave practical tips on what trans care recipients can do to take more control. For example, you can ask your health insurer for waiting list mediation if the waiting time is too long. Your health insurer will then contact all gender teams with which they have a contract and look for where the waiting time is shortest. If you are lucky, they will find a place with a shorter waiting time. Regardless of the outcome, you are sending an important signal to your health insurer: there is a problem! This means that they have not purchased enough health care…
Another tip is to bring someone with you to consultations, especially if you feel you are not being taken (entirely) seriously. Or if you have to answer strange or irrelevant questions. Strange eyes compel, also with health care providers.

Of course, there was also plenty of room for questions from participants. We knew that the situation for many trans people is difficult, but we were still shocked by the sometimes very harrowing stories we have heard.

In response to these questions, we will publish more practical information about transition care on our website in the coming weeks. The first page is now online: How do you take more control during your medical transition? A clinical chemist has already written a good article about important blood values ​​when you use hormones.

In the meantime, you can also go to:

• ‘Knowledge center’ of Transvisie: Hormones in adults and Transition in adults.
• Top tips from Stichting Transman: Top tips from practice.

Also read the report by Stichting Transman, about the workshop we gave there.

These workshops were made financially possible thanks to the Spark Fund of Mama Cash.