80 calls by families to gender identity helpline
Vanessa Lacey from Transgender Equality Network Ireland (TENI) told the Joint Oireachtas Committee on Health and Children that for some of the children, hormone treatment is a medical necessity to relieve negative symptoms associated with their condition.
A transgender man or woman is a person whose gender identity and/or gender expression differs from the sex you are born with and such issues often arise in early childhood.
Ms Lacey said the hormone treatment for children is sometimes seen as controversial but research suggests it is totally reversible.
Ms Lacey, TENI’s health and education officer, said the treatment is sometimes prescribed for children aged between 11 and 13 to give them time to make sure they are gender comfortable.
However, the treatment is not available in Ireland. Ms Lacey said some children were referred by GPs to the child and adolescent mental health services, and treated in a clinic in Britain that currently has three Irish patients.
“In other cases, the clinicians are unaware of what action to take and the child’s life is put on hold — with sometimes drastic consequences,” Ms Lacey said.
She said some parents take their children abroad at their own expense for treatment while others resort to using the internet to purchase treatments that could have dangerous side effects.
“These drastic measures are taken when the family’s primary focus is keeping their child alive until the age of 16 when they can receive medical treatment as an adult.”
Ms Lacey said 160 adult transgender people are receiving hormone therapy from Loughlinstown Hospital in Dublin. That figure had trebled since 2006.
She pointed to a survey in Ireland that found more than three-quarters of transgender people had seriously considered ending their lives and 40% had attempted suicide. “The national average for suicide is 1.6% and this begs the question — how many trans people are included in this 1.6%?”
Earlier, Ms Lacey, 49, who underwent a gender reassignment two years ago, said she appeared before the committee as a woman — not a stereotypical Irish woman and not a legally Irish woman either.
Born in 1960s Waterford, she never felt like the boy she was supposed to be. “By the time I reached 42 years of age, life was unbearable and I felt suicide was the only solution.”
She got help from a support group for lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender people.
The HSE’s national director for quality and patient safety directorate, Dr Philip Crowley, said the authority recognised the lack of an agreed treatment pathway is problematic for adults, children, and their families and is committed to ensuring this pathway is agreed and signed off on by next year.
