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Unpacking paediatric trans healthcare
I preface this by stating I am not a medical professional, and my area of expertise is social and cultural history. Much has been made in the last five years of trans healthcare for under 18s, with particular vitriol aimed at the qualified medical professionals treating those kids. Evidence gaps, lack of longitudinal studies, and almost no follow-up in adulthood are called signs that child trans healthcare is failing. Yet, the reality is that almost no paediatric medicine is held to that standard, and indeed if you attempt to scrutinise the medical literature you will find it is almost never the case. What should be a standard practice theoretically is in fact exceptional, requiring funding, political will, career dedication on the part of researchers, and a willingness by patients to participate in the research. Trans healthcare has notoriously been tightly gatekept for most of its history, so while there may have been career researchers potentially willing to do the work, most trans patients simply do not wish to engage in the process once they have been discharged and their treatment concluded.
Paediatric trans healthcare has a 110+ year history, as shown through the lives of Karl Behr (N O Body’s A man’s maiden years) and Ewan Forbes, both trans men who accessed affirming healthcare in the their teens in the early 1910s and 1920s. That we know of them highlights that there…
