Introduction

There exists a wide body of literature addressing access to medical services for gender transition (for example, Dewey, 2008, 2013; Ellis et al., 2015; Pearce, 2018). This chapter addresses non-binary people's views and experiences of gender identity services. Echoing the opening of Chapter 5, this chapter first reports participant views of specialist gender-related care. This includes the perceptions of those non-binary participants who have yet to, or do not intend to, access a gender identity clinic (GIC), as well as views on how non-binary communities as a whole perceive such care in the UK. I follow by considering experiences had of both NHS-run GICs and private medical care.

Non-binary views of medical practice related to gender transition

There was a strong sense of agreement among participants that avoiding any mention of non-binary identification, or claiming a binary-oriented identity would be their best tactical option for obtaining access to gender-affirming treatments as quickly and easily as possible. This is supported in Chapter 3 by Frankie's discussion of their specialist physician explicitly positioning trans men and women as ‘easier to treat’ than non-binary trans people. In considering how they would communicate at their first GIC appointment, Jamie noted in their diary that ‘I’m just gonna tell them I’m not female; that's not a lie.’ They went on to say that:

That Jamie ‘[had]n't learned anything different’ reminds us of the common behaviour among trans people looking to access GICs to seek out as much information as possible about what to expect from their practitioners – using both official and community sources.