Trinity College Dublin Students’ Union (TCDSU) passed a motion today calling for better transgender healthcare.
The motion mandates that the LGBT Rights Officer, President, and Welfare & Equality Officer to lobby for reduced waiting times at the Loughlinstown national gender service at St. Columcille’s Hospital. It calls for a review of the “invasiveness” of the questions asked to transgender patients seeking healthcare.
It further mandates that The LGBT Rights Officer (LGBTRO), President, and Welfare Equality Officer to lobby for the implementation of an “informed consent model” as opposed to the current “pathologised care” of transgender patients.
Following an amendment from Gender Equality Officer Jenny Maguire, the motion also mandates the LGBTRO and Gender Equality Officer to campaign for the improvement of transgender healthcare during their term.
An amendment was also added by Maguire to mandate the Communications and Marketing Officer to include information on harm reduction for transgender students seeking healthcare.
The motion was proposed by LGBTRO, Niko Singband, and seconded by Welfare and Equality Officer, Chloe Staunton.
The motion regretted the long waiting times for care and treatment methods at Loughlinstown, which it claimed are “massively harmful to the mental health of the transgender patients that the gender clinic is supposed to help”.
It noted that the national gender service only serves 150 patients per year (on average three patients per week) due to understaffing while over 300 patients are referred per year.
It also noted that treatments such as hormone replacement therapy (HRT) are given to cisgender patients with minimal medical intervention, while transgender patients are required to undergo psychological evaluation and “intrusive questioning” before receiving the same treatments.
Speaking at Council, LGBT Rights Officer Niko Singband said: “This motion is incredibly important to me because Ireland has the worst transgender healthcare in the EU. If I was Irish, I probably would not be standing in front of you all. We need to lobby the Irish government to promote transgender healthcare.”
The motion passed at Council with a 96% majority.
