As waiting times for gender services soar, transgender people speak of their experiences as time ticks by.
Waiting lists for all kinds of NHS treatments have been getting longer and longer, but for trans people the wait for a first appointment at a gender identity clinic can now be five years or more - despite a target of just 18 weeks. Here transgender people explain to the BBC how their wait has turned into a nightmare of severe anxiety, despair and in some cases, suicidal thoughts.
Data obtained by the BBC through Freedom of Information requests shows the average waiting time at the majority of NHS gender identity clinics in England has at least doubled between 2018 and 2023. She said she was not sure she would ever be able to transition, but was adamant to remain on the waiting list for the clinic in Exeter.
"If I wasn't able to get out of there I was going to disappear, I wasn't going to be able to be me. I'd be somebody else, somebody who looked like me, but not me."She has said she has since felt "at peace" with herself.that waiting times contributed to the death of 20-year-old Alice Litman, from Brighton. She killed herself while on a clinic's waiting list.
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