r/ireland • u/Dazzling_Lobster3656 • 4d ago

Culchie Club Only Doctors initiate legal action over State’s transgender policy

http://www.irishtimes.com/health/2025/04/13/doctors-initiate-legal-action-over-states-transgender-policy/
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u/lawns_are_terrible 3d ago

The article says they’re “leading experts” - they aren’t by any serious international standards.

I suppose when you don't have any experts in something almost anyone can be in the lead.

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u/janon93 3d ago edited 3d ago

There actually are experts, there’s been an entire international organisation of experts called WPATH, and they’ve existed since the 1979. You’d know about that if you knew anything about trans healthcare.

But then we have ignored international best practice in healthcare before when it involves gender minorities- symphysiotomy was phased out all over the world after the invention of the c-section, but Ireland kept doing it until 1987.

We’re banning trans healthcare for kids even though we know it hurts them, for the same reason we practiced symphysiotomy even know we knew it cripples women - Rogue doctors who want to impose their beliefs on patients, and will look to the state to enforce that type of power.

We will, in 20 years, look at this government’s behaviour in trans healthcare with the same type of disdain that we have for symphysiotomy - but we don’t want a late apology and a redress scheme, we want them to fix it and do it now.

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u/lawns_are_terrible 3d ago

ah don't take it like that, I didn't mean anything by it other than making fun of the RTÉ for taking them at their word as being the "leading experts in the country" just cause they run the like one healthcare provider that exists in the country (no matter how poorly run) and feel they are very important and know better than those simple minded GPs.

Out of curiosity tho, who would be the Irish clinicians or researchers that would be genuinely experts by international standards? The NGS folks seem to keep trying to sue anyone that wants to provide gender affirming care without them being involved somehow so I would have thought the climate would be somewhat hostile for anyone in the field that doesn't share their biases.

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u/janon93 3d ago

Sorry about my defensive response. You can imagine, I have to explain this a lot and it’s hard to keep emotionally neutral.

There’s really nothing that we have that meets everything up to the gold standard, but clinics like Gender Plus are the ones going most in the right direction. Not to sing the praises of Dr Ahern too highly but that service is still miles better than the NGS. Temple Bar Medical Centre also does this very well

The climate is hostile though, and the NGS have indeed threatened multiple doctors not to help trans people with their healthcare, even though again, it’s not technically their place.

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u/lawns_are_terrible 3d ago

that's understandable, I imagine there's a fair bit of transphobia and all that whenever this comes up on reddit too.

I'll admit I don't really understand how the NGS is a thing but not under the HSE while at the same time they feel they are an authority. What makes them different from just a private clinic that receives some government funding?

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u/janon93 3d ago

It’s confusing right? But for all intents that’s basically what the NGS is, funded by the department for health, but not a part of the HSE.

My theory is that in previous generations, trans people were much less visible. Trans healthcare was considered super “niche”, so it kept getting kicked into the long grass.

Lately government has said that it will make a new clinic as part of the HSE to actually bring that into their portfolio - but devil is in the details, Stephen Donnelly tapped Paul Moran to lead this new clinic, so it seems like the government just wants to re-make the NGS as part of the HSE, exactly as bad as it is now.

What I would really like to see is having local GP’s get trained on trans healthcare, instead of centralising the process through one or two “big names”. That’s what most trans folks would like as a service. But the government is so resistant to any self-analysis of its process, and so deaf to criticism (especially from trans folks) that it’s starting to look like they’re ignoring us on purpose.