London students sleep on NHS building for 72hrs in transgender healthcare inequality protest

Last week, a protest group of young transgender people, including students,  ‘Trans Kids Deserve Better’ scaled the NHS England office building to protest healthcare inequality.

After spending 75 hours on the ledge of the building in Waterloo, the protestors climbed down.

But they say their protests are “not done.”

Unfurling a banner from the ledge that read “We are not pawns for your politics”, the student group Trans Kids Deserve Better advocated for healthcare, dignity, and a voice for transgender people.

The group said on their Instagram page: “We (Trans youth) have been made into political tools for failing British politics in order to create moral panic, split the left, and distract from real problems.”

Research conducted by Translucent found that a trans person who was referred to a gender identity clinic today could wait as long as 54 years for their first appointment, with strategy director Claire Prosho explaining that “the waiting list is growing at nine times the rate of referral.”

On it’s website, TKDB argued trans people deserve to access care at the same rate as cisgender people, without having to go through a specialist gender identity clinic.

The page explained: “We should be able to give informed consent to our own treatment – just as any cisgender young person already can,” adding: “to delay care to a transgender person is to deny it.”

An informed consent system would mean that transgender patients who wanted to receive gender affirming care like hormone replacement therapy could be prescribed it by their GP, without having to go through a specialist gender identity clinic.

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Actress, philosopher, youtuber and trans woman, Abigail Thorn, explained on PodSaveTheUK: “If a cisgender woman goes through menopause and experiences anxiety and depression and goes to her doctor and says ‘hey I want hormone replacement therapy’ she can get it from her GP.

Abigail called the protestors “incredible,” and “brave,” on X.

“If a trans woman experiences the same states of mind and goes to the same doctor and requests the same medication, she has to go to a segregated gender identity clinic,” she continued.

Trans Kids Deserve Better also demanded protection against harassment for trans kids.

Last year, a report by the United Nations expressed “concerns over the toxic political discourse,” surrounding transgender people in the UK, and presented data suggesting hate crimes against transgender people had risen as much as 76 per cent in just three months.

Trans Kids Deserve Better said: “No trans person should ever be humiliated for who they are, and nobody should ever have to face transphobia at school.”

The protestors final demand is to have their opinion heard on “all matters which affect (their) lives.”

The group wrote: “We’re not spectacles, we’re not objects, we’re people, and our lives are at stake.”

Since their occupation began, TKDB have raised over £7,000 on their JustGiving page to support protestors living on the NHS England building ledge.

The Tab London reached out to representatives on NHS England, who declined to comment.

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Featured image via @transkidsdeservebetter