transgender

Puberty blockers: why politicians overriding doctors sets a dangerous precedent

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Written by Jaimie Veale, University of Waikato

Photo by Alexander Grey on Unsplash

This article has been republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license, and with permission from the author.

This op-ed responds to recent developments in Aotearoa New Zealand, where the Government has overridden clinical guidance to restrict access to puberty blockers for transgender young people. Although the policy change is local, the issue it raises – political interference in evidence-based healthcare and the resulting psychological impacts on young people and their whānau – has global relevance. We are sharing it here as part of broader critical conversations in health psychology about equity, clinical autonomy, and the wellbeing of gender-diverse communities.

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Doctors often aren’t trained on the preventive health care needs of gender-diverse people – as a result, many patients don’t get the care they need

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By Jenna Sizemore

A blank piece of paper, black stethoscope and a black pen are all sitting on a light blue background.
Photo by Tara Winstead

Preventive health care – such as cancer screening – is a critical tool in the early detection of disease. Missed screening can result in a missed diagnosis, delayed treatment and reduced chances of survival.

But the medical system is poorly equipped to meet the needs of gender-diverse patients.

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The importance of Transgender Day of Visibility for health psychology

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~Gareth Treharne, Department of Psychology, University of Otago, Aotearoa/New Zealand (gtreharne@psy.otago.ac.nz)

Today and evTery March 31st is Transgender Day of Visibility (see TransStudent.org or here). This day is around 6 months away from Transgender Day of Remembrance, which is held on November 20th and memorialises transgender people whose lives have been cut short (http://tdor.info). Both days serve an important purpose in raising awareness of transgender issues. Both days are pertinent to health psychology, but transgender issues continue to have very little visibility in health psychology. This oversight of transgender issues is sometimes backed up with claims that transgender issues only need to be considered when a particular piece of research or a particular health service is specifically directed at transgender people. I argue that those claims should be contested.

Today is about celebrating the visibility of transgender people. As a gay person I feel a synergy with this day of pride in being visible. I also feel a pang of trepidation at sharing that sense of synergy because today isn’t about sexuality. At the same time, I recognise an opportunity to contribute to discussions about transgender visibility from the position of a transgender ally because I know I can submit this blog post and hopefully it will be up on the website before people living in the Americas wake up to Transgender Day of Visibility. For once I can benefit from living in Aotearoa/New Zealand’s timezone where it’s always closer to tomorrow and I usually hear about international days the day after they’ve happened.
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