It's a permanent and life altering change though so surely a process over a few years is absolutely necessary?

It's more the fact that you have to wait so long to be seen by any sort of professional at all, til then you're sort of forgotten about.

Oh well that's something I would absolutely support changes in.

...looking at your post, Scarlett...I was googling and can see how frustrating it must be with the endless waiting time...I mean, it’s a good thing that there are more and more people who feel they want to go through transitioning but in turn that stretches resources and the waiting times for each stage or each appointment...some appointments can be quite simple but the waiting time has been several years...

I still think it's right that the hoops are there and should be jumped through, but the really long waiting time could do with being cut. The danger is that people will buy hormones off the internet, when not only could they be absolutely anything but they'd have no idea what it's doing to their bodies without medical supervision.

Maybe some kind of early filtering process to identify the "trender" and enby types and shove them to the back of the queue to make room for people with genuine dysphoria.

Terf ****

Yeah thats not right at all

They do mention that some people do buy them of the internet, and while they wont stop them, they mention that they must go to the doctors who will advise them on the dosage ect.

The lack of proper service provision for people seeking to explore the possibility of transition is an absolutely huge issue, certainly... the problem is that there's an ever-growing number of people who seem to believe that unilateral self ID and completely "skipping a step" in the process is the answer to that, often with a lot of conflation involving an insistance that trans is equatable with homosexuality ("you wouldn't say a child needs service interventions because they say they're gay" etc.).

The complicated truth is that while transexuality obviously is a very real thing, it is NOT as simple as sexuality at all, and there are huge mental health implications for children and adolescents.

I don't think this is an issue that JK Rowling handles well at all, however I also don't think she's ill-intentioned so much as ham-fisted, and now is falling into a trap of (ironically) feeling misunderstood being "egged on" by supporters.

I also think it's a mis-step to ignore women's concerns when it comes to trans rights... even if you don't think the concerns are real. It is, again, musch more complicated than that.

I do think that the process has to be quite a lengthy one as I know that it's not uncommon for people to regret transitioning when it's too late to be undone.

It's not easy for trans people who are sure of who they are to be faced with such a long wait but although, ideally, I'd shorten down the time it takes to transition, I think the process as a whole should take a few years with plenty of opportunities to back out if they decide that transitioning isn't for them.