Calls for trans clinic in Birmingham to improve access to healthcare

Labour councillor, David Barker, has called for a transgender clinic in Birmingham to improve access to healthcare and support, and to bring down waiting lists. As the UK’s second city, Birmingham is currently the largest city in the country without a gender clinic to support trans+ people.

Many people wait several years for their first gender identity clinic appointment and access to much-needed specialist care. Speaking at a meeting of Birmingham City Council on Tuesday 24^th March, Cllr Barker said: "Transphobia is rising and transitioning is becoming harder.

"In the United Kingdom, Birmingham is the largest city in the UK without a gender clinic of any kind."

He pressed for swifter action to be taken to offer specialist care for trans people, requesting support and funding to establish a gender clinic in Birmingham which could serve the city and wider West Midlands region.

In response to the request, Cabinet member for Health and Social Care, Labour Councillor Mariam Khan, pledged to meet members of the city's trans communities to discuss next steps.

She said the council's public health team had completed a profile of the trans community as part of a wide-ranging ‘Joint Strategic Needs Assessment’, which looked at the needs of various communities in the city.

Cllr Khan said: "These findings have been disseminated to the trans community and solutions co-produced with them to address some of the inequalities they faced. This includes actions to improve wellbeing, promote uptake of screening and work with GPs to raise awareness of treatment and care.”

Approximately 9,000 people living in Birmingham are thought to be trans+. A study conducted in 2022, when there were just seven gender clinics in the country for adults, revealed that 80% of trans people locally found that it was difficult to access services. Some 30% of trans people in the region added that their GP did not know how to refer them for specialist care.

A gender clinic in Birmingham would make access to support for trans+ people easier, and could shorten waiting lists which in turn could reduce the risk for young trans and non-binary people; 70% of whom had experienced depression or anxiety in the previous 12 months (according to the same 2022 study). These statistics have likely worsened in the ensuing years with the increased hostility and discrimination faced by the community, increasing the need for specialist support.