Levy’s Folly: The NHS from the Cradle to the Grave

In the United Kingdom, the government has ordered a review into adult transgender healthcare. In the wake of the Cass Review, the potential consequences for the community are terrifying. This is a piece I have been thinking about for a long time, and I would like to publish a new version of it somewhere. For now, it is all yours!

Professor David Levy faces a difficult challenge in constructing his review of adult transgender healthcare. Where Hilary Cass was given four years, Levy has mere months to consider the vast, complex landscape of trans healthcare. Where Cass was met with a degree of goodwill, Levy now faces the emphatic distrust of an entire community that holds deep, legitimate grievances against the NHS. With trust in the NHS at an all-time low and with transgender Britain in profound crisis, he will receive little sympathy.

The unequivocal, comprehensive failure of NHS transgender healthcare is a rotten cornerstone of a community harmed, not helped. This age-old, bitter truth is not the result of a ‘recent surge in cases’. For decades, extremely delayed and inadequate care has scarred transgender Britons both young and old. For most, even just an initial appointment takes upwards of five years, while treatment takes far longer. It must be understood that transgender people are forever desperately fighting the clock…