Eden Gard, Writer & Content Producer

The United Kingdom is often considered by the general public as a place of high opportunity and ideal living- without consideration of the transgender population.

This is, of course, without surprise- due to the systematic erasure of its transgender population. A status quo is in place that is almost impossible to move against.

  But how can it be impossible to move against? The UK is generally considered a nonviolent and open-minded country compared to most, there are no laws in place which actively suppress members of the population- at least not to public knowledge, and this is partially true in the case of transgender individuals. However, this is due to the invisible blockades in place, held up by the simple act of inaction.

  I have been an active member of the LGBT community for a decade now, but I have only made the decision to transition in the last year. Up until this point, I myself was not aware of how difficult it would be, the status quo is so tight that it had even affected me, I was of course aware of many statistics, but I was not prepared for disdain of transgender individuals that has been worked into system itself.

   My first obstacle was the same as most – acquiring hormones to begin my transition, I quickly found out that this would not be possible with the NHS, the waiting list for an initial referral is currently 5 years long and as such I encountered my first obstacle in this invisible war, there were simply no official resources on how to start my transition any other way. Luckily due to being in the community for many years I knew other individuals who would point me in the correct direction of private treatment (a recurring theme in my transition process thus far), this was not easy, starting private treatment cost me £300, which I luckily had available due to being a working adult but would likely not be at all available to younger transgender individuals, especially those without parental support.

The entire process of starting was in itself also very difficult- the lack of resources and information would also affect my doctors a shared care system is put in place whereby your private endocrinologist sends care recommendations to be prescribed by your GP (who can deny any of their own volition, at which point you must pay for private prescriptions to be placed) and in all cases the receptionists and GP had no idea of how to proceed. I was expected to tell everyone exactly how to proceed despite not knowing myself and having no resources to find out, a task extremely daunting even for myself as a 24-year-old adult and likely impossible for most younger individuals. Overall, the entire process took 4 months of constant back and forth with my GP before I finally started hormones.

  The second barricade I encountered was changing my legal information, which I would consider the more frustrating. Firstly, a deed poll is required, there is no official form or template for this only a vague statement about having a document that “disowns your old name and adopts a new one”, giving an incredible amount of room for denial if these vague standards are not met on whatever document is produced. Luckily, I found a template which allowed me to create a satisfactory deed poll. The next difficulty was using this deed poll to change all my documents, this was by far the most frustrating part of the process and where the lack of recourses was most difficult. Almost all documents that require an ID change require another document that has been already changed. This creates a loophole wherein its almost impossible to change anything, and (almost by intention) there are no official resources which give instructions on how to proceed- again, I was lucky to have a wide scope of transgender individuals to talk to and help me with their own experiences.

Through this and rooting around for a while searching for anything that could be changed with only a deed poll, I was able to change my council tax bill, acquire a letter from my work confirming that 1. I used my new name at work and 2. To their best knowledge I shall not be changing it further (something else which may not be possible to those in stealth at their workplace). Finally, I changed my bank details; the law in the UK had in fact been very quietly changed since so that this is no longer allowed unless the deed poll is enrolled. As part of this, you pay £40 to have your name change posted in The London Gazette- an archaic practice which perfectly illustrates the many ways the government is intentionally ignoring the transgender populace. Through this I was able to change my passport, or at least my name- but my gender marker cannot be changed due to another archaic stipulation about ‘proving you have lived as your assigned gender for 2 years’. Once more an example of intentional vagueness on behalf of the government meant to confuse and dissuade anyone seeking to do this- I however found out once again from the community that this would entail having a collection of documents with my new name on them dating back 2 years – so I would encourage anyone considering this process to change any more accessible documentation ASAP, such as a phone bill.

The whole processing has been incredibly taxing- and only made worse by stories of people in other countries such as Australia changing they name with ease within a few days, or even people in the UK changing it due to evidently non-gender related reasons; requiring no evidence to change their passport and having it done within a month. However, it has allowed me to grow closer with my community as a transgender individual, taking their experiences and knowledge into myself and then further spreading this information to younger transgender folks. As such, I would encourage anyone and everyone to spread as much information as they can through any channels at their disposal- this is the best way to push back against the intentional erasure that the UK government is enforcing on the transgender population.