{"id":1094509,"date":"2026-07-17T08:43:13","date_gmt":"2026-07-17T08:43:13","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/1094509\/"},"modified":"2026-07-17T08:43:13","modified_gmt":"2026-07-17T08:43:13","slug":"a-hundred-paper-cuts-daily-struggles-for-trans-people-in-bristol","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/1094509\/","title":{"rendered":"A hundred paper cuts: Daily struggles for trans people in Bristol"},"content":{"rendered":"

\u201cThis stuff around bathrooms<\/a> is awful but it\u2019s just another thing to add to the pile, hundreds of papercuts that paralyse you and stop you living your life\u201d.<\/p>\n

Emma is a young trans woman who moved to Bristol four years ago. \u201cI\u2019m quite lucky in that I pass relatively well,\u201d she says. \u201cRight at the start [of transitioning]\u2026 I didn\u2019t feel safe in bathrooms, but it\u2019s been a couple years, and now I do feel pretty safe.\u201d<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

Reporting on the stories that matter to you. Only with your support.<\/p>\n


\n Join now
\n <\/a><\/p>\n

In April 2025, the Supreme Court ruled<\/a> that the words \u2018sex\u2019, \u2018woman\u2019 and \u2018man\u2019 in the Equality Act 2010 referred to a person\u2019s sex assigned at birth, excluding trans women from the protected characteristic of women. In late May the Equalities and Human Rights Commission (EHRC) published a draft code of practice<\/a> excluding trans women from single-sex facilities.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s a really blatant attack on a vulnerable group,\u201d Emma says, of last year\u2019s ruling. She went to her GP for help with her mental health. \u201cI said, I\u2019m struggling the most I have in my life. I\u2019m struggling to get to work. I\u2019m so worried about this stuff.\u201d Her GP gave her a list of counselling groups she could refer herself to, but that was all.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019ve struggled with my mental health all my life and figuring out I\u2019m trans in the last five years has not made that easier. It feels like absolutely every step of the process is made as difficult as possible in this country.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n

Life for trans people is already stressful, expensive, and difficult. Long waiting lists for a first appointment at the gender identity clinic, rising transphobia and obsessive media coverage, all combine to make an extremely hostile atmosphere for trans people.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cOn top of that, you\u2019re then told you can\u2019t even go to the bathroom. It\u2019s not that it\u2019s the worst thing to ever happen to trans people. It\u2019s just yet another thing that makes daily life more difficult,\u201d says Emma.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u2018A completely broken system\u2019<\/strong><\/p>\n

It currently takes at least eight years to get a first appointment at a gender identity clinic (GIC). There are only a few of these in the UK, and the only one in the South West<\/a> is in Exeter. All the while you\u2019re living in a body that feels wrong.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Many trans people resort to crowdfunding surgeries and DIY hormone therapy. This involves buying hormones off the internet, without blood tests and regular checkups. It\u2019s expensive and risky.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s a completely broken system,\u201d says Natasha. She was in her forties when she came out as trans and approached her GP to start the years-long process of getting gender-affirming care. \u201cIt was a real struggle just to get the words out, saying: \u2018I\u2019m suffering with gender dysphoria\u2019\u201d.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\n

There\u2019s always been transphobia but it\u2019s been ramping up. People have taken a real interest in transphobia as a hobby<\/p>\n

Lexi<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

That was over eight years ago. She still hasn\u2019t had her first appointment. \u201cNo one will tell me where I am on the waiting list.\u201d She initially got medication from abroad, spending around \u00a3250 a month doing this privately before she managed to get shared care, where GPs share the prescribing and monitoring of specialist medicine. \u201cIt\u2019s been a lot of trial and tribulation and risk\u201d.\u00a0<\/p>\n

A lot of trans people go private with their healthcare, or choose to crowdfund if they can\u2019t afford the cost. Lexi, a bar manager, is fundraising \u00a34,000 for surgery, but will eventually spend \u00a320,000 if she gets everything she wants to get done privately.<\/p>\n

Even if you wait for NHS treatment, it\u2019s still costly. Graeme*, who transitioned in 2012, was finally called up for surgery late last year. Waiting lists for surgery are more than five years long<\/a>, and this is after the initial years-long wait for the first appointment at the GIC. You have to be within an hour\u2019s travel from the hospital for the week after your surgery and the only two hospitals for bottom surgery in the UK are in London.\u00a0<\/p>\n

It cost Graeme around \u00a31,000 in Airbnbs, lost earnings and dogsitting, and a week of annual leave for his partner. In the end, his surgery was cancelled the day before and he had to pay it all again when surgery came round again four months later.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cThe actual surgical team themselves are brilliant,\u201d he says. \u201cReally kind, open, proactive people.\u201d But, to get to them you have to wait several years, travel to London, and spend a lot of money. \u201cUnless you can get hold of a grand or so, it\u2019s not an option.\u201d<\/p>\n

Rising transphobia<\/strong><\/p>\n

Transphobia has been steadily growing in the UK over recent years. A recent survey<\/a> by advocacy group TransActual of 4,000 trans people, the largest in-depth survey of trans people in the UK to date, found that the rise in discrimination and prejudice is having a \u201cprofound effect on the wellbeing and daily lives of trans people\u201d. It was conducted before last year\u2019s ruling.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\n

I\u2019ve had to get a thick skin\u2026 Otherwise it would do my head in<\/p>\n

Natasha<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Almost all respondents said that media coverage had affected their mental health or made their gender dysphoria worse. The majority of respondents also said they believe media coverage has affected the behaviour of strangers, family members, colleagues, and friends. 99% also said they\u2019d heard politicians saying transphobic things.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cWe\u2019re all feeling like, how long before this constant ramping up of the transphobic rhetoric\u2026 turns into a situation where we just can\u2019t live here any more?\u201d says Lexi, who\u2019s been considering leaving the UK since the ruling.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cI can\u2019t go online at this point without seeing an insane amount of trans stuff. People have taken a real interest in transphobia as a hobby\u201d.\u00a0<\/p>\n

This rising transphobia is being fuelled by an increase in negative media attention. \u201cThe Telegraph are obsessed with us,\u201d says Chay Brown, director of healthcare at TransActual. \u201cIn the past five to ten years, the increased number of pieces about trans people [in the media] is unbelievable.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n

In 2018-19 the British press published<\/a> around 3.5 times as many articles on trans people as they had done in 2012, and the coverage was overwhelmingly negative.\u00a0<\/p>\n

People are \u201cbeing fed a diet of lies,\u201d about trans people, says Chay.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u2018Socially acceptable to be transphobic\u2019<\/strong><\/p>\n

Nathasha feels that transphobia is \u201cdefinitely worse\u201d since the Supreme Court ruling. \u201cI think that\u2019s the big difference with trans communities [compared with] other minorities,\u201d she says. \u201cAt the moment it feels socially acceptable to be transphobic, whereas it\u2019s pretty socially unacceptable to be racist or ableist. Though that\u2019s changed a bit over the last year.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cPeople are more emboldened to be abusive to trans people,\u201d says Chay. \u201cThe same way as they\u2019re more emboldened to be racist. It\u2019s linked to the general rise of far right politics\u201d.<\/p>\n

Natasha regularly gets abuse from strangers in the street. Sometimes it\u2019s groups of men just staring at her as she passes. Sometimes people make comments, and instead of intervening, others often join in.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cIt might not be vocally joining in, but it\u2019ll be a smile or a laugh.\u201d She recounts all this calmly. \u201cIt\u2019s quite scary that when I think back all of these years, not once has anybody stood up.<\/p>\n

\u201cWhenever I go out, there\u2019s a lot of people doing double takes or sideways stares or just simply staring for far too long. I suppose I\u2019ve had to get a thick skin\u2026 Otherwise it would do my head in.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n

She\u2019s found that since the Supreme Court ruling, it\u2019s often older men giving her abuse. Recently though, it was schoolchildren. Walking her dog in the centre, Natasha saw two children of around 15 laughing, pointing, and taking photos of her. She challenged them, \u201cperhaps naively\u201d.<\/p>\n

\u201cImmediately one of them said, \u2018oh you\u2019re a paedo. Why has a grown man come over and spoken to us?\u2019 I was really taken aback.\u201d No one around said anything.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cThat\u2019s just quite sad, because I\u2019ve always said every generation gets slightly better and more accepting, and that seems to have taken a different turn.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n

Mental health struggles<\/strong><\/p>\n

The long waiting lists, widespread discrimination and abuse, and uptick in media attention have, unsurprisingly, have led to trans people having much worse mental health<\/a> than cis people. Trans people are five times more likely to have a mental health condition like anxiety or depression than cis people.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cSo many things need to happen that are fundamental to trans people surviving. It\u2019s a scary position we\u2019re in and I want to be hopeful, but it\u2019s really hard to feel that,\u201d says Emma. She says that enshrining the rights of trans people in law and making trans healthcare take less than a decade to begin would be a good start.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019m scared, not only for myself, and not only for trans people, but for people of colour, people who are disabled, so many other groups of people. Because when fascist governments hurt trans people, everyone else is next to be targeted\u201d.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Independent. Investigative. Indispensable.<\/p>\n

Investigative journalism strengthens democracy \u2013 it\u2019s a necessity, not a luxury.<\/p>\n

The Cable is Bristol\u2019s independent, investigative newsroom. Owned and steered by more than 2,600 members<\/b>, we produce award-winning journalism that digs deep into what\u2019s happening in Bristol.<\/p>\n

We are on a mission to become sustainable, and to do that we need more members. <\/b>Will you help us get there?<\/b><\/p>\n


\n Join the Cable today
\n <\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"\u201cThis stuff around bathrooms is awful but it\u2019s just another thing to add to the pile, hundreds of…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":1094510,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","_share_on_mastodon":"0"},"categories":[8818],"tags":[381,748,393,5566,4884,26384,218,24245,16,15],"class_list":["post-1094509","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-bristol","tag-bristol","tag-britain","tag-england","tag-gender","tag-great-britain","tag-hate-crime","tag-mental-health","tag-trans-people","tag-uk","tag-united-kingdom"],"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@uk\/116934438215732445","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1094509","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1094509"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1094509\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/1094510"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1094509"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1094509"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1094509"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}