{"id":213892,"date":"2025-12-03T21:38:11","date_gmt":"2025-12-03T21:38:11","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/213892\/"},"modified":"2025-12-03T21:38:11","modified_gmt":"2025-12-03T21:38:11","slug":"ireland-worst-in-eu-for-transgender-healthcare-with-four-year-wait-times-dail-hears-the-irish-times","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/213892\/","title":{"rendered":"Ireland worst in EU for transgender healthcare with four-year wait times, D\u00e1il hears \u2013 The Irish Times"},"content":{"rendered":"

Trans healthcare in Ireland is \u201cconsistently ranked as the worst in Europe, with over 2,000 people on a waiting list for healthcare\u201d, Labour<\/a> health spokeswoman Marie Sherlock<\/a> told the D\u00e1il<\/a> as she warned of rising hostility and attacks.<\/p>\n

Ten years after the passage of the Gender Recognition Act, young people have to wait more than four years before they get their first appointment with the National Gender Service<\/a> and are \u201cself-medicating on the black market\u201d, she said.<\/p>\n

Introducing a Labour Party motion on trans healthcare, Ms Sherlock described the provision of services as \u201can absolute mess\u201d and \u201cnon-existent\u201d in many areas. \u201cWe desperately and urgently need a reset in how those services are provided in this country,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe stakes are too high for too many trans people, the wait time of four and a half years makes them feel like there is no service.\u201d<\/p>\n

Her party colleague Ged Nash claimed \u201cdoctors are judging patients when they should be caring for them\u201d as he highlighted the case of a trans woman who transitioned nine years ago. <\/p>\n

When she moved home, a new GP \u201csimply refused to continue prescribing HRT unless she saw an endocrinologist, despite her having a stable and long-term prescription\u201d. <\/p>\n

The endocrinologist in turn \u201cdemanded unredacted psychiatric reports from almost a decade ago\u201d.<\/p>\n

Mr Nash said it was not an isolated case and \u201cbarrier after barrier was put in front of this trans woman\u201d who is \u201cconsidering sourcing her hormones online with all of the risk and lack of regulation that entails\u201d. <\/p>\n

Minister for Health Jennifer Carroll MacNeill said she had previously criticised the division that \u201cseemed to be seeping across from the United Kingdom\u201d.<\/p>\n

She recalled speaking to trans people \u201cwho told me the fearful things that were being touted at that time, namely that people would come into changing rooms, for example, and dress up as men. <\/p>\n

\u201cWe all know the sheer nonsense that a man would dress up as a woman and come into a changing room for the purposes of attacking me, as though with all of the conversations we have had about femicide in this room we ever needed a man to dress up to attack a woman.\u201d <\/p>\n

The Minister said \u201cI always regretted that such attitudes seeped over here.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"IndependentIndependent Ireland TD Richard O\u2019Donoghue. Photograph: Sam Boal\/Collins Photos <\/p>\n

Labour TD Eoghan Kenny hit out at \u201cscaremongering\u201d and criticised the \u201cnonsense\u201d from Independent Ireland \u201cwhen we raise trans issues\u201d. But during heated exchanges Independent Ireland TD Richard O\u2019Donoghue said people had made assumptions about him and he called on TDs on the left to \u201chave the courtesy to shut your mouth\u201d. <\/p>\n

He said: \u201cI have been heckled in this House, people saying I\u2019m anti-gay and anti-this.\u201d<\/p>\n

Calling to be treated with respect, he said \u201cI am a parent and a grandparent. I\u2019ve a son that\u2019s gay.\u201d He told TDs \u201cyou don\u2019t know me but you make assumptions\u201d.<\/p>\n

He said \u201cthere are an awful lot of people out there who are scared and lack understanding\u201d and it was \u201cmy job here is to help them regardless of whether I agree with them or not\u201d.<\/p>\n

\u201cAs a doctor their job is to help people whether they agree with them or not. Education on this is key,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Trans healthcare in Ireland is \u201cconsistently ranked as the worst in Europe, with over 2,000 people on a…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":213893,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[275],"tags":[4767,18,66264,135,475,474,19,7062,17,5002,9171,1678,116497,116498,116499],"class_list":{"0":"post-213892","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-healthcare","8":"tag-dail-eireann","9":"tag-eire","10":"tag-ged-nash","11":"tag-health","12":"tag-health-care","13":"tag-healthcare","14":"tag-ie","15":"tag-independent-ireland","16":"tag-ireland","17":"tag-jennifer-carroll-macneill","18":"tag-labour-party","19":"tag-lgbtq","20":"tag-marie-sherlock","21":"tag-national-gender-service","22":"tag-richard-odonoghue"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@ie\/115657802747014775","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/213892","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=213892"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/213892\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/213893"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=213892"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=213892"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=213892"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}