Joanne Lockwood: Welcome to Inclusion Bites, your
Joanne Lockwood: sanctuary for bold conversations that spark change. I'm
Joanne Lockwood: Joanne Lockwood, your guide on this journey of exploration into
Joanne Lockwood: the heart of inclusion, belonging, and societal
Joanne Lockwood: transformation. Ever wondered what it truly takes to create a
Joanne Lockwood: world where everyone not only belongs but thrives?
Joanne Lockwood: You're not alone. Join me as we uncover the
Joanne Lockwood: unseen, challenge the status quo, and share
Joanne Lockwood: stories that resonate deep within. Ready to dive
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Joanne Lockwood: down after a long day, let's connect, reflect,
Joanne Lockwood: and inspire action together. Don't forget,
Joanne Lockwood: you can be part of the conversation too. Reach out to
Joanne Lockwood: jo.Lockwood@seechangehappen.co.uk
Joanne Lockwood: to share your insights or to join me on the show.
Joanne Lockwood: So adjust your earbuds and settle in. It's time to
Joanne Lockwood: ignite the spark of inclusion with Inclusion Bites.
Joanne Lockwood: And today is episode 113 with
Joanne Lockwood: the title, Healthcare without Barriers. And
Joanne Lockwood: I have the absolute honor and privilege to welcome Doctor Helen
Joanne Lockwood: Webberley. Helen is the founder of
Joanne Lockwood: GenderGP, an online health and
Joanne Lockwood: well-being clinic which proudly serves transgender
Joanne Lockwood: people of all ages across the world.
Joanne Lockwood: When I asked Helen to describe her superpower, she said it is
Joanne Lockwood: her ability to drive change, challenge
Joanne Lockwood: the status quo, and amplify the voices of
Joanne Lockwood: those who often face discrimination within the health
Joanne Lockwood: care system whilst also demonstrating
Joanne Lockwood: resilience. Hello, Helen. Welcome to the show.
Dr Helen Webberley: Hi, Jo. Thanks so much for having me. It's an absolute pleasure to be here.
Dr Helen Webberley: Thank you. I feel very honored. I I used your
Joanne Lockwood: services through GenderGP back in 2016, and I've
Joanne Lockwood: followed your trials and tribulations over the last couple of years,
Joanne Lockwood: which no doubt you will expand on. But yeah. But it's, it's a real honor
Joanne Lockwood: to have you here, and thank you for sharing your time and giving us
Joanne Lockwood: your voice. So, Helen, health care without barriers. Tell us
Joanne Lockwood: more. Yeah. That's, well, it's kind of
Dr Helen Webberley: like as we say that, it's it should be everybody's privilege. It should be
Dr Helen Webberley: everyone's daily bread and butter, you know, health care without
Dr Helen Webberley: barriers, that's what we all need. And, you know, everywhere in the news you read
Dr Helen Webberley: about health, you need health positivity, health promotion. It's all about
Dr Helen Webberley: being healthy, being fit, being healthy, being happy, being well.
Dr Helen Webberley: But then actually when some people want to be fit and healthy and happy and
Dr Helen Webberley: well, it doesn't always go to plan. And that's as I
Dr Helen Webberley: as a in my career as a doctor, I've seen it several
Dr Helen Webberley: times within several community groups but none so
Dr Helen Webberley: big as the trans and non binary. From here on I will simply just say
Dr Helen Webberley: trans but for the trans, non binary, gender diverse, gender incongruent
Dr Helen Webberley: people, I spotted back in 2015 Safety things
Dr Helen Webberley: were not good and that there were boundaries and there were barriers and
Dr Helen Webberley: there was gatekeeping. And even worse, there was bias and prejudice
Dr Helen Webberley: and harm from within my own profession. And
Dr Helen Webberley: I was just shocked. And it's interesting you say that you you used my service
Dr Helen Webberley: back in 2016. I can't believe it's been
Dr Helen Webberley: such a long time since this all started. It sometimes feels like
Dr Helen Webberley: yesterday. And then at other times, it feels like a whole lifetime.
Dr Helen Webberley: Sometimes good, sometimes bad, which you kind of allude alluded to
Dr Helen Webberley: in your trials and tribulations. And we've still got a long way to go
Dr Helen Webberley: to cut down and break down those barriers and
Dr Helen Webberley: make healthcare inclusive to all minority groups.
Dr Helen Webberley: And while I have the privilege to be a doctor, to
Dr Helen Webberley: have medical training, to have the experience of the trans community,
Dr Helen Webberley: and while I've still got kind of life and blood in my veins, I
Dr Helen Webberley: really, really hope to make a really big difference, to
Dr Helen Webberley: trans health care. And I guess, like I say, we've still got
Dr Helen Webberley: quite a long way to go. Yeah. You talked about
Joanne Lockwood: bias and prejudice, and and I guess also there's and
Joanne Lockwood: I speak from my own experience see. There's my own internalization
Joanne Lockwood: of those biases, prejudices, and the and the and the narratives you hear
Joanne Lockwood: in the media and online and other places. And I know that
Joanne Lockwood: I in my early stages of exploring my
Joanne Lockwood: identity, I didn't know where to turn. And, you
Joanne Lockwood: know, it's we talk about 2015, 2016. It's quite a while
Joanne Lockwood: ago, and the world has moved a long way in trans
Joanne Lockwood: awareness, and I certainly see a difference. So back
Joanne Lockwood: then, I I went to see my GP, and he had really no
Joanne Lockwood: idea. There was no there was no knowledge at GP level, and we I think
Joanne Lockwood: we still find that postcode lottery around primary care
Joanne Lockwood: support, where to go, differences of of
Joanne Lockwood: of service or of of delivery. How I I
Joanne Lockwood: appreciate you're not necessarily speaking for the NHS at all see,
Joanne Lockwood: but where what can the NHS learn about supporting
Joanne Lockwood: trans non binary people more effective? Well, it's interesting you talk about the internalisation
Dr Helen Webberley: and I I think what people don't realise is, Wellbeing healthcare professionals and the
Dr Helen Webberley: public who who can speak so foully sometimes, what they don't
Dr Helen Webberley: realize is that people who are about to pick up the phone
Dr Helen Webberley: or go online to make an appointment to see their GP, to take
Dr Helen Webberley: that brave step to say, okay, you may not know
Dr Helen Webberley: this, but I am actually transgender, and I would like to
Dr Helen Webberley: do X Y Z, and I would like you to help me with that.
Dr Helen Webberley: That is a huge step. The people that I've spoken to, that
Dr Helen Webberley: doesn't that doesn't come quickly or easily. It
Dr Helen Webberley: may be a spur of the moment second when you're like, I'm gonna do this
Dr Helen Webberley: right now. I'm gonna do it. I'm gonna be brave enough. And that that instant
Dr Helen Webberley: gives you the bravery to do it. But it's been planning and plotting for a
Dr Helen Webberley: long time. And I've heard people tell me that they pick the phone up and
Dr Helen Webberley: to put the phone down, they pick the phone up, they get through and it's
Dr Helen Webberley: like, how can I help? And it's like, okay, can I have my flu
Dr Helen Webberley: vaccine? You know, it's such a brave thing to do. And then
Dr Helen Webberley: when you do it, there's the the canceled appointments, see okay, I can't do this.
Dr Helen Webberley: I'm gonna cancel and then I'm gonna rebook and then I'm gonna cancel. It's such
Dr Helen Webberley: a journey to make that, to make that first appointment. That's what I've heard.
Dr Helen Webberley: And then when you get to that employment appointment, oh my goodness, are you
Dr Helen Webberley: brave enough to say the words or do bottle and just say you've got a
Dr Helen Webberley: bad ear or your knees hurting again? You know, but
Dr Helen Webberley: just such a journey. And it's so important that that
Dr Helen Webberley: first that the the look on that doctor's face
Dr Helen Webberley: when you say the words for the first time, their response, that
Dr Helen Webberley: look that, are they hiding it? Are they are they
Dr Helen Webberley: visibly shocked? Are they petrified? Are they are they
Dr Helen Webberley: disgusted? And these are all experiences and emotions that I've
Dr Helen Webberley: heard, you know, reflected back to me from people who've who've been through
Dr Helen Webberley: this. And then that internalized,
Dr Helen Webberley: as you say, feeling or shame or emotion that goes back into you as a
Dr Helen Webberley: response to your experience with that doctor does
Dr Helen Webberley: untold harm. Can you imagine going to the doctor? No problem at
Dr Helen Webberley: all. I'm trans and I've just decided in my life that now is the right
Dr Helen Webberley: time to take those steps and do something about it. And I'm going to phone
Dr Helen Webberley: up and I'm going to make an appointment and I know I'm going to go
Dr Helen Webberley: in and I'm going to have the best experience. And the doctor's going to say
Dr Helen Webberley: to me, oh, that's great. I'm so glad you're, you were brave enough to tell
Dr Helen Webberley: me that. Thank you so much for sharing it with me. Right. Let's get on
Dr Helen Webberley: this journey together. How should we do this? What should we do? What are the
Dr Helen Webberley: first steps? How can I help? It would be such a different experience.
Dr Helen Webberley: And I have heard that never, maybe, never,
Dr Helen Webberley: which is really, really, really sad. And you talk about the postcode lottery,
Dr Helen Webberley: Jo, and that's just not fair. That's just not fair.
Dr Helen Webberley: You should feel, you should be confident that you're going to get the same experience
Dr Helen Webberley: wherever you go, whichever doctor that you see, whichever nurse, whichever
Dr Helen Webberley: hospital, whichever clinic, whichever outpatient department, whichever GP surgery,
Dr Helen Webberley: whichever flu vaccination clinic. But we
Dr Helen Webberley: again know that that's not, that doesn't happen. And even worse than that, we talk
Dr Helen Webberley: online and look in the community and speak at forums and you're like,
Dr Helen Webberley: oh I wonder what my GP is going to be like and you look it
Dr Helen Webberley: up and you're like, oh jo. Have you seen what they're saying about that surgery?
Dr Helen Webberley: Oh, my God. But that's where I'm registered. What am I going to do?
Dr Helen Webberley: So it's just it's just a travesty. And if ever we talk about non
Dr Helen Webberley: inclusion or barriers or
Dr Helen Webberley: inadequate health care, I mean, that that's just epitomizes it
Dr Helen Webberley: really. It I'm just I'm smiling and grinning as you're talking there because
Joanne Lockwood: I'm probably the first person you're gonna meet that had an extremely positive
Joanne Lockwood: interaction with my GP on first contact. And I I tell
Joanne Lockwood: I briefly tell you the story. It it was I was going through some real
Joanne Lockwood: mental health crisis. So I so I come out publicly, Facebook
Joanne Lockwood: and all those sort of things, and then I was going through this real crash.
Joanne Lockwood: And my wife at the time said, right, I'm gonna book an appointment to go
Joanne Lockwood: and see your your GP. He'll sort you out. I think she expected
Joanne Lockwood: the GP to sort of to give you some tablets, fix me, and tell me
Joanne Lockwood: I was being silly and getting on with life. But instead, I he he said,
Joanne Lockwood: what's the matter? And I said, I just went it came out my mouth.
Joanne Lockwood: I I'm trans. I don't wanna transition sort of thing. It came out my mouth.
Joanne Lockwood: And immediately, he he he he focused on
Joanne Lockwood: me. He can metaphorically, he he cleared his diary.
Joanne Lockwood: So this 10 minute appointment, I was in there for an hour and a half
Joanne Lockwood: to 2 hours. He just cleared it. He just carried on. There was no there
Joanne Lockwood: was it see. He referred me to the GIC. He asked
Joanne Lockwood: me a couple of questions around, if I had a magic
Joanne Lockwood: machine that could change your gender immediately, would you want it to be
Joanne Lockwood: one way or reversible? And I said, give see the
Joanne Lockwood: machine. I'll smash it to pieces with a hammer. I never wanna go back through
Joanne Lockwood: it. So, like, so I think at that point there, he really engaged, talked about
Joanne Lockwood: my mental health, and he even gave me his NHS personal email
Joanne Lockwood: address. So he said, if any if you wanna talk to me,
Joanne Lockwood: email me. You don't need to go through the system. You just email me anytime
Joanne Lockwood: if you have any issues about this. And so he's been amazing. He
Joanne Lockwood: he signed the share care agreement straight away. We got that sorted.
Joanne Lockwood: So it it can happen. But as you as you say, most
Joanne Lockwood: of the apprehension is that well, I think there's this belief within
Joanne Lockwood: the the trans community that medical professionals
Joanne Lockwood: Inclusion and the realization that medical professionals are just human.
Joanne Lockwood: They focus on their specialism. Anything out out of their blinkers,
Joanne Lockwood: they just don't know. And I think trans people are kind of on that
Joanne Lockwood: periphery of understanding still. Yeah. But that's,
Dr Helen Webberley: but that shouldn't be allowed. And, you know, I'm I'm I'm you can't see me,
Dr Helen Webberley: but I'm clapping and applauding and patting your GP on the back here because that
Dr Helen Webberley: is exactly what we need. But the next step that we need
Dr Helen Webberley: is for your GP not to have to refer you to the GIC.
Dr Helen Webberley: So the next step we need is for doctors to be able to empower
Dr Helen Webberley: themselves to learn about trans healthcare. Now when
Dr Helen Webberley: I first join, started doing this, I was like, oh my goodness. Do
Dr Helen Webberley: you know what people are asking me to do? They're asking me to switch their
Dr Helen Webberley: hormones. So this person who's got an estrogen profile
Dr Helen Webberley: is asking me to switch off their estrogen and give them testosterone.
Dr Helen Webberley: And that testosterone is going to make their voice deep. It's going to
Dr Helen Webberley: make their their skeleton, their muscles bigger. It's going to develop facial
Dr Helen Webberley: hair, make their head hair probably thin, if that's what's in
Dr Helen Webberley: their genes. It's going to reduce their lifespan because men have a shorter
Dr Helen Webberley: lifespan than women. This is all the things that were going through my head. And
Dr Helen Webberley: then I looked at the other way around, and I was like, okay. This person
Dr Helen Webberley: is asking me to switch off their natural testosterone and give
Dr Helen Webberley: them estrogen instead. And that's gonna make their bodies develop in
Dr Helen Webberley: a way that, you know, an ovarian puberty would happen. It
Dr Helen Webberley: just felt so unnatural to me as a
Dr Helen Webberley: learning doctor. But then but then I had the fortune of the peep the
Dr Helen Webberley: person opposite me saying, yes. Exactly. That is exactly what I want. I
Dr Helen Webberley: want that. Please, as quickly as possible, can I have it now? Can can you
Dr Helen Webberley: do it? Can you do it? And the problem that we have at the moment
Dr Helen Webberley: is, well now I don't know how to do it and I'll refer you to
Dr Helen Webberley: this open hole. What I and I can't guarantee your experience when you
Dr Helen Webberley: get there and I don't know how long it will be to get there. But
Dr Helen Webberley: it's just that fear of doing something apparently so unnatural. And so
Dr Helen Webberley: when I was wondering about how unnatural it is in my in my
Dr Helen Webberley: youth, if you like, I looked at the kind of the chemical composition of
Dr Helen Webberley: the hormones. And there's just, if you can picture those kind of hexagons and
Dr Helen Webberley: lines that make up chemical compounds, it was just like 1 or 2
Dr Helen Webberley: bars difference. And then I looked to, like, cholesterol and they're like, these are these
Dr Helen Webberley: 3 the estrogen, the the testosterone, cholesterol, all the same kind of
Dr Helen Webberley: compound. You've just taken a little arm off or added a little hexagon on.
Dr Helen Webberley: And I'm like, this is they're actually so similar. And the hormones
Dr Helen Webberley: are just natural. They're just natural things that our body needs. And does it
Dr Helen Webberley: really matter which one you have? We know it's really important to have
Dr Helen Webberley: 1 and to make sure you've got enough hormones, we know that really clearly. And
Dr Helen Webberley: make sure that you don't get them too early, and make sure you don't get
Dr Helen Webberley: them too late. We know all of that about hormones. But it doesn't actually matter
Dr Helen Webberley: which one you have as long as you have it. And if you've got someone
Dr Helen Webberley: saying, well, do you know what? I don't want the testosterone Joanne. I want the
Dr Helen Webberley: estrogen hormone. That's gonna suit me much better. Why are we not listening
Dr Helen Webberley: to these people and saying, yeah. No problem. And
Dr Helen Webberley: then, you know, again Belonging about I'm talking to your GP if he's listening
Dr Helen Webberley: here. It's okay. So how do you do that then? How do we
Dr Helen Webberley: switch off someone's natural hormones? And I'm
Dr Helen Webberley: like, well, we do it. We do that. We do that in in kids who've
Dr Helen Webberley: got precocious puberty is when they start puberty too early,
Dr Helen Webberley: like age 5 or 6. And that's just way too early to start
Dr Helen Webberley: puberty. Their their ovary or testicle woke up way too early, and
Dr Helen Webberley: we just stop it. We give them this medicine, and there is a natural
Dr Helen Webberley: hormone that stops it. And we do it with people with prostate cancer, for
Dr Helen Webberley: example. We give them that medicine because we know that prostate cancer feeds
Dr Helen Webberley: off hormones, off testosterone usually. And we'd and, we don't want it to.
Dr Helen Webberley: So we switch off the testosterone. So I'm like, so it's really easy to
Dr Helen Webberley: switch off someone's hormones because we and we're already doing it in
Dr Helen Webberley: general practice. And then how do you replace someone's hormones? And
Dr Helen Webberley: And I was like, we do that already too. We we manipulate hormones with
Dr Helen Webberley: oral contraception, we give hormones for menopause,
Dr Helen Webberley: whether that's estrogen or testosterone. You know, when someone's not
Dr Helen Webberley: making enough of their own. Some people are born when their ovaries or their
Dr Helen Webberley: testicles don't work properly and they don't produce enough hormones, so we give
Dr Helen Webberley: them the the hormone by medicine. When you put 2 and
Dr Helen Webberley: 2 together, we already switch off people's hormones
Dr Helen Webberley: in general practice very easily, every day.
Dr Helen Webberley: And we already replace those hormones with the hormone
Dr Helen Webberley: that they need, the body needs, every day, all day every day. It's all bread
Dr Helen Webberley: and butter. But then if you're Joanne, it's not quite the
Dr Helen Webberley: same. We don't do that because we don't know how to do it, and we're
Dr Helen Webberley: scared of it, and it feels too new, and we must refer you.
Dr Helen Webberley: But what we've got to do is move towards a place where we're not
Dr Helen Webberley: scared to do it, and we already know how to do it, we already know
Dr Helen Webberley: how to do it. The other question actually which is, well how much do you
Dr Helen Webberley: give? How much hormone do you give? And it's like, well see know, we know
Dr Helen Webberley: what the right level is. We do a blood test and we know, for
Dr Helen Webberley: example, that someone with ovaries, we kinda wanna see the the estrogen
Dr Helen Webberley: between 308100. So that's what we wanna see in a trans woman or a
Dr Helen Webberley: transfeminine person as well. So we know all these things and that but yet
Dr Helen Webberley: GPs kind of have this feeling that they don't know how to do it, when
Dr Helen Webberley: actually it's the simplest thing in the world, and we're already doing it every
Dr Helen Webberley: day. So it's actually just down to the bravery. It's
Dr Helen Webberley: should I do it? Am I allowed to do it? What
Dr Helen Webberley: might happen to me or the person that I'm helping, my patient,
Dr Helen Webberley: if I do do it? And those are the those are the the political
Dr Helen Webberley: Safety regulatory bits that that we need to to definitely sort
Dr Helen Webberley: out, and that's the problem. And the other problem at the moment is that
Dr Helen Webberley: GPs are not being supported to make these decisions. And if they ask the question,
Dr Helen Webberley: am I allowed? But not really saying you are.
Dr Helen Webberley: There's nothing out there saying you help, you do, you help your patient,
Dr Helen Webberley: make sure you do the best by them. And, you know, the Royal College of
Dr Helen Webberley: General Practitioners fairly recently have kind of said, we support
Dr Helen Webberley: doctors well, they haven't they haven't said that in these words, but this is the
Dr Helen Webberley: interpretation. We support doctors who don't feel able to do this.
Dr Helen Webberley: We recommend that doctors refer to gender specialist gender identity
Dr Helen Webberley: clinics. We don't think that our GPs should be asked
Dr Helen Webberley: to provide this specialist care. And if you think about
Dr Helen Webberley: specialist care, when you you mentioned a little a minute or 2
Dr Helen Webberley: ago Jo, that back in there's been a big rise in awareness
Dr Helen Webberley: of trans people. Kind of you know 2015, Safety, we had a
Dr Helen Webberley: celebrity or 2 that came out as trans and there was this big awareness rising
Dr Helen Webberley: of awareness the people that have had to be hidden for so long
Dr Helen Webberley: suddenly became visible and as as the braver ones became visible
Dr Helen Webberley: first, the shyer ones became visible after them. And so we've
Dr Helen Webberley: had a big rise and so what that means is that it's this is not
Dr Helen Webberley: a small specialist subject And and the
Dr Helen Webberley: NHS have kind of cutoffs. You know, if if there's a condition that has less
Dr Helen Webberley: than 500 cases a year, then that's considered to be highly
Dr Helen Webberley: specialised, and that should only be dealt with in super specialist
Dr Helen Webberley: clinics because you can't have just one doctor in the whole of that area
Dr Helen Webberley: that knows how to do it. You so you you put those those very rare
Dr Helen Webberley: conditions in super specialized clinics where there's lots of
Dr Helen Webberley: support. But but we have way more than 500 cases a year,
Dr Helen Webberley: way, way more. And so we we can't we have to move away from that
Dr Helen Webberley: super specialized model, and that means we have to bring it back
Dr Helen Webberley: into primary care, which is GP surgeries, and secondary care, which is
Dr Helen Webberley: your local hospital. But at the moment, doctors are kind of scared to do
Dr Helen Webberley: it. They don't know if they're allowed to do it. They don't know what will
Dr Helen Webberley: happen to them if they do do it. And they feel that they don't
Dr Helen Webberley: have the skills and knowledge. And if you but if you look at the the
Dr Helen Webberley: duties of a doctor, which is the which is good medical practice,
Dr Helen Webberley: which is the kind of the medical law if you like, The first
Dr Helen Webberley: rule is make your patient your first concern, and
Dr Helen Webberley: the second rule is make sure your skills and knowledge are up to
Dr Helen Webberley: date. And so those doctors out there that say, I don't know how to do
Dr Helen Webberley: this, and I accept that I don't know how to do this, and I'm not
Dr Helen Webberley: going to increase my skills or knowledge in this area
Dr Helen Webberley: acting against the duties of a doctor. And I sometimes
Dr Helen Webberley: feel we all need to get our flag out and walk march up and down
Dr Helen Webberley: the street and go in front of the the doors that are
Dr Helen Webberley: currently closed. And behind those doors, we're having very
Dr Helen Webberley: negative Joanne negative conversations, and we need
Dr Helen Webberley: to knock on the door and say, actually, your duty as a
Dr Helen Webberley: doctor is to increase your skills and knowledge in this area of health
Dr Helen Webberley: care and make your patient your first concern, even if they're
Dr Helen Webberley: trans. Is some of the fear based on, well, fear of
Joanne Lockwood: litigation, fear of see transitioning, fear of being
Joanne Lockwood: caught up in front of the GMC for getting it wrong? Is
Joanne Lockwood: it a genuine lack of lack of awareness? Is it
Joanne Lockwood: bias? You know? Trans people have gone from being a bit weird
Joanne Lockwood: to being a threat somehow in the the last 5 or 6 years. We've
Joanne Lockwood: we've turned the tables. Now now we're taking over the world. We're now political football.
Joanne Lockwood: Whereas before, we were kinda like this, this this dirty little
Joanne Lockwood: secret that used to somehow leak onto the front page of the tabloids every
Joanne Lockwood: so often, and that was it. Now everyone everyone's worried about
Joanne Lockwood: us. We don't know our own mind. We we're I I
Joanne Lockwood: don't know. I I I'm I'm really confused as to what the root of it
Joanne Lockwood: is. Is it just bias and fear? Fear of being hold
Joanne Lockwood: up themselves and prescribing off license or whatever the
Joanne Lockwood: phrase physiology is there. These these medicines and hormones
Joanne Lockwood: aren't designed for people like see. Therefore, it's risky to without
Joanne Lockwood: the trials. Is that is that the situation?
Dr Helen Webberley: Wellbeing very interesting, isn't it? So the
Dr Helen Webberley: litigation, litigation really means that see, a trans person's
Dr Helen Webberley: going to come to you, as a doctor in 10 years time and
Dr Helen Webberley: say, you gave me hormones, and you
Dr Helen Webberley: made my breasts grow or my voice drop,
Dr Helen Webberley: or my, you know, my beard grow, and I now
Dr Helen Webberley: regret it, And it's your fault. You acted
Dr Helen Webberley: negligently, and therefore I'm going to sue you. So that's
Dr Helen Webberley: that's litigation. And unfortunately, of course, the media
Dr Helen Webberley: like to show those stories. And but what we do know is, if
Dr Helen Webberley: we talk about regret rates, with every single medical
Dr Helen Webberley: intervention, there is a regret rate. And when when you
Dr Helen Webberley: look at the regret rate for transitioning, the regret rate is
Dr Helen Webberley: tiny. Now I'm we may talk about why people
Dr Helen Webberley: might regret it in later on in the show if we have time, but but
Dr Helen Webberley: let's just accept for now that we know that the regret rate for
Dr Helen Webberley: transitioning is minuscule. Compared with, for
Dr Helen Webberley: example, knee surgery or breast augmentation or some plastic
Dr Helen Webberley: surgeries, hip surgery, a penectomy, all lots
Dr Helen Webberley: and lots of things that we do, people people regret. And those
Dr Helen Webberley: regret rates are much higher but they're they're not, they haven't got that kind of
Dr Helen Webberley: emotion attached to them and doctors doctors still do them. So
Dr Helen Webberley: that's litigation. We're, you know, people are scared of
Dr Helen Webberley: being sued in the future in case somebody regrets it. but, but actually what you
Dr Helen Webberley: need to do is just make sure that that person, at the time that they're
Dr Helen Webberley: making that decision with you, are giving informed consent. And that
Dr Helen Webberley: means, do they know, they're saying to you, please Joanne you switch my hormones? And
Dr Helen Webberley: they're saying, I know what this means. I know what this will do to me.
Dr Helen Webberley: I'm fully aware of the pros and cons. I know what this can
Dr Helen Webberley: and can't achieve. I know that this is what I want to do. And I
Dr Helen Webberley: really, really believe that at this time, and I've been thinking about it
Dr Helen Webberley: for a long time, this is the right thing to do. And
Dr Helen Webberley: so the doctor's job is to say, okay, well, you know, these are the pros
Dr Helen Webberley: and cons, these are the risks and benefits, what do you reckon? Are you sure
Dr Helen Webberley: you're aware? Absolutely, I'm aware. Fine. And you can't,
Dr Helen Webberley: that's never going to be medical negligence. That is not medical
Dr Helen Webberley: negligence. That is not that that might be someone may Change their mind down the
Dr Helen Webberley: road and we know that's very rare. But it's not medical negligence, it was
Dr Helen Webberley: a good informed consent process. So we don't
Dr Helen Webberley: so in many ways, if people are if doctors are worried about that, I don't
Dr Helen Webberley: think we should. Make sure that your consent processes are good and we're
Dr Helen Webberley: fine kind of thing. The GMC, the GMC guidance.
Dr Helen Webberley: So GMC are the regulator of doctors and the guidance has changed a lot over
Dr Helen Webberley: my time. I watched it change as I was going through my own process with
Dr Helen Webberley: the GMC. And the GMC actually have become much more
Dr Helen Webberley: trans aware recently and they're quite positive.
Dr Helen Webberley: They're saying you must help your patient and you you mustn't just say no. You
Dr Helen Webberley: must if you're gonna say no, you have to have a really good reason for
Dr Helen Webberley: saying no. And, you know, they they do see, if you don't know what you're
Dr Helen Webberley: doing, then then talk to a gender specialist, which is a bit tricky because they're
Dr Helen Webberley: not enough around. And actually, if if the gender specialists who are
Dr Helen Webberley: working in the NHS at the moment spend all day on the phone to the
Dr Helen Webberley: GPs to give them reassurance, then the waiting list Wellbeing even
Dr Helen Webberley: longer. So that's a bit of a that's a bit of a problem. But I
Dr Helen Webberley: don't think there will be a doctor in the land who who's trying to think
Dr Helen Webberley: about helping their trans patient who won't have heard of my case. And, you know,
Dr Helen Webberley: that's why it was so important that I won that case. And I hope that
Dr Helen Webberley: the lasting message is that doctor went through a lot, but
Dr Helen Webberley: the final message is, it was absolutely fine. She she she
Dr Helen Webberley: managed to prove to the tribunal that those 3 young patients that were
Dr Helen Webberley: quite stark examples, if you like, it was it was right and
Dr Helen Webberley: it was fine for her to treat them the way that she did. And I
Dr Helen Webberley: hope that that gives other doctors out there confidence. But we could do with the
Dr Helen Webberley: GMC giving a bit more confidence. And actually maybe even saying, you know, if
Dr Helen Webberley: you if you deny care, what are going to be what are the consequences going
Dr Helen Webberley: to be? It's all right, it's all very well for you saying, well, if I
Dr Helen Webberley: give care, will I be will I be, you know, hold up in
Dr Helen Webberley: front of the GMC, let's say. But what if I deny care, will I see,
Dr Helen Webberley: will will I have action taken against see? You know, am I fit to
Dr Helen Webberley: practice as a doctor if I can't help this transgender patient in front of
Dr Helen Webberley: me? And And that's what we need to switch that narrative to. You may you
Dr Helen Webberley: mentioned the off label. We use off label drugs all the time
Dr Helen Webberley: in medicine every day. And, you know, we, we explain
Dr Helen Webberley: to people that sometimes the drug that we're recommending for that condition
Dr Helen Webberley: is, hasn't got a license. And there's loads of reasons why it might not have
Dr Helen Webberley: a license. It's just that some people use that as an excuse. Oh my goodness.
Dr Helen Webberley: But it's like, okay, if you're gonna use that as an excuse, you have to
Dr Helen Webberley: use that as an excuse for all of the things that we prescribe off
Dr Helen Webberley: label medication to. You can't just say I'm not gonna give it for trans people,
Dr Helen Webberley: but I am gonna give it for arthritis or for cancer or for
Dr Helen Webberley: diabetes, etcetera. You you know what I mean? And
Dr Helen Webberley: jo therefore, what is it? Is it the fear? The fear of not knowing. If
Dr Helen Webberley: you don't know, if you're not educated, if you don't if you haven't had the
Dr Helen Webberley: education and knowledge, it makes you scared, for sure. And there isn't
Dr Helen Webberley: enough education and knowledge. If you have a look at medical school curricula,
Dr Helen Webberley: postgraduate training, undergraduate training, later in life
Dr Helen Webberley: graduate training, where do you go and learn how to be a transgender doctor? There
Dr Helen Webberley: just aren't any places, there's no education. And
Dr Helen Webberley: even the very small amount of education that we have, we
Dr Helen Webberley: used to have the GIRES, module with the e-learning
Dr Helen Webberley: module with the RCGP, and they took it down because it was perhaps too affirmative
Dr Helen Webberley: and replaced it with a basic one which says see people are
Dr Helen Webberley: transgender and you must use the right pronouns and see if you can get the
Dr Helen Webberley: name right. And I'm like, come on. We we need the training that says how
Dr Helen Webberley: do I turn off the hormones and how do I switch the hormones and what
Dr Helen Webberley: hormones should I give and what's the safest way of doing it and how often
Dr Helen Webberley: should I do a blood test. That's the knowledge and education that we need
Dr Helen Webberley: out there and that see haven't got, unfortunately.
Dr Helen Webberley: And then there's bias. You know? And what what what happens
Dr Helen Webberley: to those doctors who actively won't help? So not
Dr Helen Webberley: the ones that are just, oh my goodness. I don't know and I'm not even
Dr Helen Webberley: going to work bother finding out how to do it. I'm just going to refer
Dr Helen Webberley: you. What about the ones that say, well I don't believe in this, I'm not
Dr Helen Webberley: going to refer you. Go away. Don't be such a silly girl. Don't go away
Dr Helen Webberley: such a silly boy. Look what you're doing to your wife. Look what you're doing
Dr Helen Webberley: to your family. How can you possibly think like this? Everyone's gonna laugh at
Dr Helen Webberley: you. And this is what people have experienced in the GP surgery. God
Dr Helen Webberley: is against you. Now that's just not right. You're just not allowed to do that
Dr Helen Webberley: as a doctor. And it's about time that the doctors who are behaving in that
Dr Helen Webberley: way faced the difficulties that the doctors who
Dr Helen Webberley: want to help are a bit scared of, if you know what I mean. It's
Joanne Lockwood: a generational thing. Does it tend to be more established
Joanne Lockwood: senior GP, or is it across the board? Is it
Joanne Lockwood: I I mean, am I well, being age biased here?
Dr Helen Webberley: I don't know actually. I mean, it'd be interesting survey to do, wouldn't it, of
Dr Helen Webberley: trans people. How old was your doctor? What have you? I mean, we know that
Dr Helen Webberley: the younger generations are much more fluid in and much more
Dr Helen Webberley: understanding. But then also, we know that that there are some
Dr Helen Webberley: young people out there who can be very, very bitter and twisted and
Dr Helen Webberley: Safety. And, you know, our younger generations are
Dr Helen Webberley: unfortunately experiencing some difficulties in their in parenting and what have
Dr Helen Webberley: you, and can be very vicious and, and, and antagonistic. So
Dr Helen Webberley: it's tricky, isn't it? Is it an age thing? I don't know. You get
Dr Helen Webberley: it's interesting. If you listen to people talk about their grandmother, for example, you know,
Dr Helen Webberley: when I told my grandma I was Joanne, and you listen to the different
Dr Helen Webberley: experiences, some have a great experience, you know, oh my goodness
Dr Helen Webberley: that's so amazing, well done topic kind of thing. And then some are just
Dr Helen Webberley: awful. And so I guess, it's across all age groups,
Dr Helen Webberley: the, the bias and the prejudice. But the simple
Dr Helen Webberley: answer is it's not allowed and it shouldn't be allowed,
Dr Helen Webberley: but it is still being allowed. And that's the problem. It's
Joanne Lockwood: funny you say that about age. And I I met some Chelsea Pensioners in
Joanne Lockwood: a jazz bar in Chelsea, a pizza express in Chelsea, the
Joanne Lockwood: the pheasantry, I think it's called. And I had a great evening with these Chelsea
Joanne Lockwood: Pensioners. They were just chatting away. I thought they'd be biased and prejudiced, but
Joanne Lockwood: Mhmm. I suddenly realized that they've had so many lived experiences
Joanne Lockwood: around the world and lived a full life. And while I
Joanne Lockwood: thought I was gonna struggle, I had I had I was celebrated and,
Joanne Lockwood: other story, my my my wife's father, my father-in-law. He
Joanne Lockwood: tells a story about a member of the family you shouldn't speak of. They
Joanne Lockwood: were cross dressing or trans or something like this, a dark
Joanne Lockwood: part of the family. So this is not a modern phenomenon. This is this is
Joanne Lockwood: something that's been going on since the beginning of time. Trans people
Joanne Lockwood: aren't new. It's just again, we've moved from this from
Joanne Lockwood: from being hidden to being aware, and I think that is that scaring
Joanne Lockwood: people, isn't it? We're disrupting society. Yeah. You
Dr Helen Webberley: yeah. You talked about that a little a couple of times, you know, that fear.
Dr Helen Webberley: And, you know, back in the back in the day, see were Joanne people
Dr Helen Webberley: just sexual perverts or were trans people those kind of people that were
Dr Helen Webberley: just in that house down the street that nobody ever saw and it was full
Dr Helen Webberley: of amazement and wonderment and what have you? Or are trans people
Dr Helen Webberley: in some in some ways dangerous to people in bathrooms
Dr Helen Webberley: or in hospital wards or or in
Dr Helen Webberley: on school trips in in the wrong dormitory kind of thing. You know, there's this
Dr Helen Webberley: fear of of the unknown. And it's no different from people
Dr Helen Webberley: who used to be scared of colored people, you know, were they going to be
Dr Helen Webberley: dangerous in some way? Or people who gay people, you know,
Dr Helen Webberley: were they were they going to just attack you and have sex with you kind
Dr Helen Webberley: of thing, you know. So that that kind of fear and awareness and and
Dr Helen Webberley: knowledge and education and and actually bringing voices to
Dr Helen Webberley: life, which is what you're doing through your podcast, is how we educate.
Dr Helen Webberley: So as well as the kind of the medical knowledge that we need to hurry
Dr Helen Webberley: up and get out there, which is some of the work that GenderGP is doing,
Dr Helen Webberley: It's also about hearing those voices. And you, you mentioned voices at
Dr Helen Webberley: the beginning and, you know, the trans voices are being hushed and they're
Dr Helen Webberley: not loud enough. And if they do speak loudly, they get attacked
Dr Helen Webberley: with the nastiest, most vicious comments that people
Dr Helen Webberley: are allowed to to do and even
Dr Helen Webberley: to in court some people, you know, this debate about Joanne,
Dr Helen Webberley: trans whatever Joanne inclusion or trans awareness
Dr Helen Webberley: or being Joanne. You know, the debate about whether it's a it's a real
Dr Helen Webberley: thing or whether you're putting it on or what have you. With the debate about
Dr Helen Webberley: how we're allowed to to treat trans people online or in the street
Dr Helen Webberley: and and the the the kind of the debate about the things we're allowed to
Dr Helen Webberley: say about or to trans people Wellbeing allowed. And it's
Dr Helen Webberley: being allowed in courts, it's being allowed in in tribunals, it's being allowed in
Dr Helen Webberley: workplaces, in schools, the debate, I mean. And by allowing the
Dr Helen Webberley: debate, we're allowing that uncertainty, that fear, that bias, that
Dr Helen Webberley: discrimination, that prejudice. If we say right, actually,
Dr Helen Webberley: on 14th March 2024,
Dr Helen Webberley: that debate is no longer allowed. Trans people exist,
Dr Helen Webberley: trans people are a portion of our society and actually they're just as
Dr Helen Webberley: boring or as or exciting or as ordinary or
Dr Helen Webberley: as unordinary as you or I are. Nothing to see here.
Dr Helen Webberley: Right. Equality and Diversity respect
Dr Helen Webberley: and embrace Diversity, equality for all, no more debating.
Dr Helen Webberley: The only debating we will now do is how best
Dr Helen Webberley: can society hurry up and be inclusive to
Dr Helen Webberley: trans people everywhere. And that's the debate that we should be allowed to be
Dr Helen Webberley: having. Instead of and it it just drives me mad. I can't even
Dr Helen Webberley: read it in the newspapers. You know, the politicians
Dr Helen Webberley: are allowing debate in their own commons or
Dr Helen Webberley: whatever it is. I don't know. I just I just, you know, that that and
Dr Helen Webberley: that is why we're facing this uphill struggle at the moment. That's because the
Dr Helen Webberley: people in power are still allowed to debate, and they're even
Dr Helen Webberley: allowed to say it publicly. I can't believe it. Well, they're getting a microphone shoved
Joanne Lockwood: in their face and ask the question, can a woman have a penis?
Joanne Lockwood: that's what's happening. And they're they're running scared because that's
Joanne Lockwood: that's a that's a no win answer, whatever you say. You're gonna get
Joanne Lockwood: berated if you agree, berated if you don't agree. Or if you
Joanne Lockwood: pause for 3 seconds, why do you have to pause for 3 seconds to
Joanne Lockwood: think about your answer? So people are being bullied into a
Joanne Lockwood: response. But the answer is so clearly yes. There is an
Dr Helen Webberley: answer to that, and the answer is yes. And that's we've already established
Dr Helen Webberley: this in the Equality Act and, you know, there are the
Dr Helen Webberley: protected characteristics and gender reassignment is a
Dr Helen Webberley: protected characteristic. So we've done all that. Can a woman have
Dr Helen Webberley: a penis? Yes. Can a man have a vagina? Yes. Can
Dr Helen Webberley: you possibly be not a man or a woman? Yes. What
Dr Helen Webberley: genitals would a man or someone who is not a man or a woman have
Dr Helen Webberley: either? Then we've done it. We've discussed it. It's there. And
Dr Helen Webberley: that's what the the politicians should be saying right at the beginning. Right.
Dr Helen Webberley: Actually, let's just have some ground rules here. You know?
Dr Helen Webberley: Some people that you might may think of as a man may have a vagina,
Dr Helen Webberley: and some people who who may think of as a woman may have a penis.
Dr Helen Webberley: Like, let's just get that out of the way. And now we need to start
Dr Helen Webberley: making some rules and some societies and poll political policies
Dr Helen Webberley: that makes all of these people included. I know many women and I know
Joanne Lockwood: many men. I've never actually really got into the depths of do they have
Joanne Lockwood: a penis or do they have a vagina. It's not something that really enters my
Joanne Lockwood: mind at that point when I'm having a conversation with them. But for some people,
Joanne Lockwood: it becomes, like, I happen to transfix on these body parts.
Joanne Lockwood: Yeah. And and it's it's it's, yeah, it it's becoming kind of,
Joanne Lockwood: that seems to be the big issue. You know, do you have a penis or
Joanne Lockwood: not? Is that part of the problem where, 20,
Joanne Lockwood: 30, 40, 50 years ago with all the gatekeeping, if you were a
Joanne Lockwood: trans woman, you were expected to behave in a certain way. You know, we saw
Joanne Lockwood: the the film the BBC One documentary. Was it Judith or
Joanne Lockwood: Julie Grant or something, whoever it was, the, the trans
Joanne Lockwood: woman in the in the seventies who was on telly? They they filmed
Joanne Lockwood: her going to the gender specialist, and she had to perform and
Joanne Lockwood: be taken seriously. And I've even heard some a a doctor even
Joanne Lockwood: say, well, I I'm I'm attracted to you, therefore, you pass. You must be a
Joanne Lockwood: woman. That kind of thing in order but now now trans women can
Joanne Lockwood: have beards. They can have hair chest hair. They can they can have cropped
Joanne Lockwood: hair, they can they can they they break the boundaries of the of the
Joanne Lockwood: social construct of gender. Is that what's is that what's causing this confusion
Joanne Lockwood: where trans people aren't behaving like women, they aren't behaving like men,
Joanne Lockwood: they're they're they're blurring everything. It's really confusing. I mean, I
Dr Helen Webberley: think, Jo, what we what we need to move to the next see, isn't it?
Dr Helen Webberley: And then just like you don't say, look at that black
Dr Helen Webberley: man walking down the road. We would not be allowed allowed to say that. What
Dr Helen Webberley: you say is, look at that man walking down the road. And if, you know,
Dr Helen Webberley: and we've all been there where, you know, you you you're recounting a
Dr Helen Webberley: story that someone you met in town and you say they're black and someone will
Dr Helen Webberley: challenge you and say, why did you say they're black? Is it was it is
Dr Helen Webberley: it relevant that they're black? And it's like, well, no, that was just kind of,
Dr Helen Webberley: you you you know, we've all been there. We need to lose that. There's a
Dr Helen Webberley: man on the street I met today, end of. And I think if we lose
Dr Helen Webberley: that trans woman trans man bit, there are you a woman or a man or
Dr Helen Webberley: doesn't matter? Do you know what I mean? But I think by holding on to
Dr Helen Webberley: that, sometimes that label, sometimes we we I think
Dr Helen Webberley: we're we're still continuing that divide.
Dr Helen Webberley: Now I know that there are some trans people who are very very proud of
Dr Helen Webberley: that trans identity and they want to be that, in the same way that some
Dr Helen Webberley: black people are very proud of their heritage and they want to keep that. And
Dr Helen Webberley: this is not about stripping that away, but this is about not making it
Dr Helen Webberley: a part of every single label. You are allowed to be a woman, even
Dr Helen Webberley: if you have a penis, even if you underwent some kind of gender reassignment, what
Dr Helen Webberley: whatever. Whether that was just a name change or
Dr Helen Webberley: a person, you know, the way I way I want to talk to you or
Dr Helen Webberley: a medical change or surgical change, it doesn't matter. But some kind of gender
Dr Helen Webberley: reassignment. So let people let people choose whether they keep their
Dr Helen Webberley: trans label or not. And but from
Dr Helen Webberley: society's point of view, stop Wellbeing people. I have a problem with people
Dr Helen Webberley: being labels homosexual and bisexual and
Dr Helen Webberley: heterosexual as well. Just leave this leave it out. It doesn't matter. They're just
Dr Helen Webberley: people who like having sex because that's a good thing to do if you want
Dr Helen Webberley: to, You know? Yeah. And, I mean, there was there was a stage
Joanne Lockwood: in my life in the last 5 or 6 years where that label was
Joanne Lockwood: important to me. But I I don't get up in the morning and go, yay.
Joanne Lockwood: I'm a woman. Yay. I'm a woman. I I get up and I I I
Joanne Lockwood: make breakfast. I fill my car with petrol. I I do some
Joanne Lockwood: work. But my my my sense of identity of who I am
Joanne Lockwood: doesn't fit into my brain at all. I just am these days, and
Joanne Lockwood: I think I always said the ultimate aim of my gender transition was for life
Joanne Lockwood: to be ordinary and boring again. Yeah. And that that was the outcome. It wasn't
Joanne Lockwood: a continual forever party and celebration of anything. It was
Joanne Lockwood: just I just am. I've got a I've got a wardrobe full of clothes.
Joanne Lockwood: I've got a couple of shoes, and I've got a coat. And I I get
Joanne Lockwood: I look at the weather and go, I'm gonna wear this today. And that's who
Joanne Lockwood: I am. And it's I think so, certainly, I agree with you about trying
Joanne Lockwood: to drop that primary identity Mhmm. Of
Joanne Lockwood: trans or nonbinary or being black or being
Joanne Lockwood: white. If it means something to you, brilliant, celebrate it. But
Joanne Lockwood: it doesn't have to. And that's, I think, probably the
Dr Helen Webberley: definition of true inclusivity, when it doesn't
Dr Helen Webberley: matter what you are or what who you are, you're just a person
Dr Helen Webberley: in Safety, see as everybody else. And that's true
Dr Helen Webberley: inclusion, I think. Yeah. It's your contribution and your your
Joanne Lockwood: value your personal values and the impact you have on others that's more
Joanne Lockwood: important than the packaging, for want of a better way of describing
Joanne Lockwood: it. So you mentioned earlier about we've been
Joanne Lockwood: prescribing hormones and and tweaking this and tweaking that for a
Joanne Lockwood: long time. And let me just touch on, if you don't mind, the menopause.
Joanne Lockwood: You know, my my wife is is is, you know, late
Joanne Lockwood: fifties. She's, like many women in her late fifties,
Joanne Lockwood: is is on this cusp of menopause, perimenopause, trying to figure out what's going
Joanne Lockwood: on. And her GP, and she's had a number of them recently, are
Joanne Lockwood: really struggling with hormones and and the balance and engaging with
Joanne Lockwood: her. So even from her perspective, there's a
Joanne Lockwood: lack of understanding around estrogen,
Joanne Lockwood: testosterone. I've had more blood tests before my hormone profile than
Joanne Lockwood: she's ever had. They won't give her one. They just said, there's no point in
Joanne Lockwood: giving you a blood test. So they've got no idea whether she's between 300 and
Joanne Lockwood: 800 or whatever it may be. So does does that reinforce the fact
Joanne Lockwood: there's a lack of understanding about sex based hormones, if I
Joanne Lockwood: would have a better way of describing it? Definitely. Definitely. And, you know,
Dr Helen Webberley: I can't remember when it was, what year it was. I'm rubbish with years, but
Dr Helen Webberley: there was, you know, they did a big study on hormone replacement therapy and they
Dr Helen Webberley: stopped the study early because they thought there was a harm and that HRT
Dr Helen Webberley: hormone replacement therapy would cause cardiovascular disease, heart disease,
Dr Helen Webberley: strokes, etcetera. And it caused a major panic. And I think it I think it
Dr Helen Webberley: was the one of the worst things that's happened to women and men actually.
Dr Helen Webberley: Well, estrogen people and testosterone people over the years
Dr Helen Webberley: because, it's it's really put a damper on on the the
Dr Helen Webberley: the importance of hormones. And in the olden days, we're only supposed to live till
Dr Helen Webberley: about 60. You know, we were done. Do you know what I mean? And but
Dr Helen Webberley: these days, we live till a 100. And and the hormones are really important.
Dr Helen Webberley: They're really important for your mental well-being and your
Dr Helen Webberley: cognitive function, which is, you know, your your ability to think
Dr Helen Webberley: and and work work stuff out if you like. And they're really important for
Dr Helen Webberley: your bones, bone strength. We know that, for example,
Dr Helen Webberley: people with ovaries who've been through the menopause and no longer
Dr Helen Webberley: have their estrogen, we know by the time they're about 70, if they fall
Dr Helen Webberley: over, they break their hip. Or if they fall over, they they get a fracture
Dr Helen Webberley: in their wrist because their bones have gone thin. And when, you know, if you
Dr Helen Webberley: sometimes if you think about that little old lady in the street who's humped over,
Dr Helen Webberley: that's because she's got her bones have gone thin in her spine and and
Dr Helen Webberley: they've crumped over. We know how important hormones are, and yet
Dr Helen Webberley: we're so bad at doing it. And it's just like, come along now. Let's stop
Dr Helen Webberley: being bad at it. Go and read the books. There's plenty of information out there.
Dr Helen Webberley: We don't need Davina McCall to go and to be the one that educates us.
Dr Helen Webberley: That's kinda we need to do this medically and understand that sex hormones
Dr Helen Webberley: are really, really important for very many reasons.
Dr Helen Webberley: And let's let's start making people's lives better by giving them hormones
Dr Helen Webberley: with informed consent. These are the risks. These are the benefits. This this is
Dr Helen Webberley: what will happen if you do take extra hormones. This is what will happen if
Dr Helen Webberley: you don't take extra hormones. What would you like to do? And we have to
Dr Helen Webberley: give that in a balanced way, not listening to the media, not listening to the
Dr Helen Webberley: the negative medical press. We have to do a proper evaluation
Dr Helen Webberley: and help people, but we're not doing it well at all. Do you feel
Joanne Lockwood: willing and able to comment on the NHS
Joanne Lockwood: England guidelines that came out yesterday? It was very timely. It came out
Joanne Lockwood: yesterday around, puberty blockers,
Joanne Lockwood: the cash report, the closing of Tavistock,
Joanne Lockwood: gender identity services, and what's gonna happen now to
Joanne Lockwood: youth services around gender. Do you have a perspective on any of
Joanne Lockwood: that? Well, I mean, people will
Dr Helen Webberley: die as a result of this. The NHS,
Dr Helen Webberley: Wellbeing people who have signed that
Dr Helen Webberley: those recommendations will be responsible for
Dr Helen Webberley: child deaths in the United Kingdom. That is for
Dr Helen Webberley: sure. Absolutely see, Which is
Dr Helen Webberley: horrific to think. And what I am amazed at, and
Dr Helen Webberley: again it comes down to people with prejudice Wellbeing having holding
Dr Helen Webberley: positions in high places and having power, to to
Dr Helen Webberley: to enforce and to make policy.
Dr Helen Webberley: But we've done this. Right? We have something called the
Dr Helen Webberley: World Professional Association of Transgender Health. We have the European
Dr Helen Webberley: Professional Association of Transgender Health, and we have one in the US, see
Dr Helen Webberley: Australia. Like, look, we have lots of PATHS, Professional Association of
Dr Helen Webberley: Transgender Health. Now they are panels of absolute
Dr Helen Webberley: experts. They are medically qualified,
Dr Helen Webberley: psychologically qualified, and they're lay people. There's a there's big
Dr Helen Webberley: panels. And what the panels have done over the years is analyze all the research,
Dr Helen Webberley: research, all the evidence, the small trials, the big trials,
Dr Helen Webberley: the they've looked at clinics who've been providing this care
Dr Helen Webberley: for many years, and they pull everything together and they make
Dr Helen Webberley: guidelines, international accepted clinical
Dr Helen Webberley: guidelines on how to treat adults and how to treat young
Dr Helen Webberley: people, and they publish them. And the most recent one that the WPATH
Dr Helen Webberley: published was back in 2000 I thought it was last year, wasn't it?
Dr Helen Webberley: And it's very clear. Puberty blockers save lives.
Dr Helen Webberley: Puberty blockers given at an given at the right
Dr Helen Webberley: time will prevent life changing, life
Dr Helen Webberley: altering effects on the body, which reduce
Dr Helen Webberley: stigmatization and bullying and harassment and prejudice and bias, all those things that we've
Dr Helen Webberley: talked about. They save lives in from suicide, mental, poor
Dr Helen Webberley: mental health, etcetera. And they give trans young people
Dr Helen Webberley: the opportunity to live their life in the gender that they
Dr Helen Webberley: truly are. Now I just absolutely
Dr Helen Webberley: cannot understand why people in the NHS who are making
Dr Helen Webberley: these new policies for the care of UK trans people
Dr Helen Webberley: are not reading it. I've never seen it once referred to in the CAS
Dr Helen Webberley: report or what have you. Or in NHS England's, you know, they say, oh, we
Dr Helen Webberley: follow the WPATH guidelines. And I'm like, well, you clearly you don't because you're just
Dr Helen Webberley: now saying that that these young people shouldn't see have this care.
Dr Helen Webberley: And this care has been probably been more evaluated than any other
Dr Helen Webberley: care I know because of its highly political and contentious
Dr Helen Webberley: profile. You know, certainly when other treatments that I've see
Dr Helen Webberley: given to patients definitely haven't undergone this scrutiny. But this treatment
Dr Helen Webberley: has been undergone so much scrutiny and they've all come together and the
Dr Helen Webberley: Endocrine Society and said, absolutely. Puberty blockers and
Dr Helen Webberley: hormones should be given to transgender youth at the time that is right
Dr Helen Webberley: for them, which is when they're ready for them, not when we're ready for them,
Dr Helen Webberley: when they are ready for them. And so if you have a trans young person
Dr Helen Webberley: who is ready for them at the start of puberty and they can give informed
Dr Helen Webberley: consent, they should absolutely have them. And if you've got a
Dr Helen Webberley: trans young person who's ready to undergo puberty that
Dr Helen Webberley: matches their gender identity, and they can they have the capacity to give
Dr Helen Webberley: informed consent, or they have a parent who's able to give informed
Dr Helen Webberley: consent for them, they should absolutely be able to have the hormones that
Dr Helen Webberley: give them the puberty that matches their gender identity. And
Dr Helen Webberley: the rest of the world is listening to WPATH, and the United
Dr Helen Webberley: Kingdom is saying that we don't have enough evidence. I don't really know
Dr Helen Webberley: what they're reading that the rest of the world is not read. The trouble is
Dr Helen Webberley: It's really just wanna say one more thing. Sorry. And the trouble is that the
Dr Helen Webberley: UK have been on a pedestal for so long that other countries are following
Dr Helen Webberley: us. And so Sweden, Finland, and Denmark, they're like, oh my goodness. If the United
Dr Helen Webberley: Kingdom is stopping it, we must stop it too. And then we use that as
Dr Helen Webberley: a backlog. Oh, goodness. Well, if Denmark is stopping it, we were right to stop
Dr Helen Webberley: it. And I'm like, no. They just followed us. So it's I'm I'm
Dr Helen Webberley: appalled at the people who've made those decisions. And as I
Dr Helen Webberley: said, and I'm gonna say it again very loudly, deaths will occur
Dr Helen Webberley: as a direct result of the people who have signed those papers. Yeah. I was
Joanne Lockwood: gonna ask you that because I've when I checked through the, the reports and
Joanne Lockwood: documents yesterday, I did notice that the countries you mentioned were backing
Joanne Lockwood: off. So what you're saying is almost like its this chicken and egg. You know?
Joanne Lockwood: Are they backing off? Or we've been talking about backing off. And they also meant
Joanne Lockwood: that w path are almost backtracking on their guidance as well, which I guess
Joanne Lockwood: because we're calling into question, everyone's having a conversation now.
Joanne Lockwood: But one thing I did note significant in the Inclusion the documents
Joanne Lockwood: was they they didn't base any of the evidence on lived experience. They
Joanne Lockwood: completely ignored people with lived experience. It's all about clinical
Joanne Lockwood: evidence, and we all know that there's not enough clinical trials
Joanne Lockwood: that are qualitative and quantitative enough
Joanne Lockwood: because the the the sample size is is too small often
Joanne Lockwood: because people don't wanna put themselves forward or don't wanna help themselves, whatever. So it's
Joanne Lockwood: really hard to to judge the the truth. And that's
Joanne Lockwood: what that's what I I my my outcome of reading what I read yesterday was
Joanne Lockwood: you were trying to hit a deadline of the middle of March for when the
Joanne Lockwood: the current services close on 31st March and the new services open on the 1st
Joanne Lockwood: April. You wanna make sure they've got the guidance you want them to have, not
Joanne Lockwood: the guidance they're following at the moment in in almost like that. They were trying
Joanne Lockwood: to engineer the outcome to support the well, engineer the
Joanne Lockwood: report to support the outcome they wanted. Yeah. I mean, you say
Dr Helen Webberley: and then WPATH when, when the the NHS England published
Dr Helen Webberley: their their interim recommendations, WPATH and
Dr Helen Webberley: EPATH put out a statement, a very a joint statement, and
Dr Helen Webberley: basically said that they find the NHS interim recommendations
Dr Helen Webberley: harmful, harmful, dangerous. Those are big
Dr Helen Webberley: words, you know, for another kind of body to
Dr Helen Webberley: to criticize the NHS and say that the work you're doing, the thing you're about
Dr Helen Webberley: to publish is harmful and dangerous. I mean, that's, that's, those are pretty
Dr Helen Webberley: big words. And you talk about the fact that there's not enough research, there's plenty
Dr Helen Webberley: of research. It's just that people don't wanna read it. You know, they don't wanna
Dr Helen Webberley: listen to it. And they say, oh, the sample size is small. see we make
Dr Helen Webberley: medical decisions on smaller sample sizes than that all the
Dr Helen Webberley: time. And also there are plenty of big studies, plenty big
Dr Helen Webberley: enough studies. What they're saying is that we don't have enough studies
Dr Helen Webberley: where you've got a 100 people young people who say they are trans. You
Dr Helen Webberley: split them into 2 groups. You give one of them puberty blockers and one of
Dr Helen Webberley: them one you don't give puberty blockers and you see what happens.
Dr Helen Webberley: And you've got to make it blind so that you don't know what happen. But
Dr Helen Webberley: of course you do know what happens because it's quite obvious because puberty goes carries
Dr Helen Webberley: on. Jo. Of course you can't do that. You can't, of course you can't do
Dr Helen Webberley: that kind of study because it's just not ethical. So we'll never have that
Dr Helen Webberley: kind of study but we do have plenty of evidence to show that
Dr Helen Webberley: puberty blockers and gender affirming hormones improve physical
Dr Helen Webberley: health, emotional health, psychological health, and social health. We
Dr Helen Webberley: have plenty of evidence. It's just that the people don't who are making
Dr Helen Webberley: decisions, they don't wanna read it. But how's the world gonna change? It it seems
Joanne Lockwood: to me that we're we're getting further and further down this this
Joanne Lockwood: rabbit hole of of of political and
Joanne Lockwood: people making decisions, people with gender critical views making decisions,
Joanne Lockwood: rewriting the rules. Are we are we are we gonna see stuck
Joanne Lockwood: in this this place for for generations? I mean, is there a way out of
Joanne Lockwood: this? But it's those people that we've
Dr Helen Webberley: got to make sure that the people in high places are inclusive
Dr Helen Webberley: and that they understand the equality act and that they understand about
Dr Helen Webberley: gender identity and gender reassignment, and they understand that the
Dr Helen Webberley: debate is not allowed anymore. And those people in high places, those are the
Dr Helen Webberley: ones that we've really, really, really got to make sure that you're not gonna be
Dr Helen Webberley: allowed to be in that high place making those decisions if you're not
Dr Helen Webberley: totally and utterly gender aware. The,
Dr Helen Webberley: the, you know, it's really it's just so important to eradicate those people
Dr Helen Webberley: in those positions, and not allow them to to have that platform.
Dr Helen Webberley: And the people that are fueling that in the, in
Dr Helen Webberley: the media and and, you know, the well known celebrities, I'm
Dr Helen Webberley: definitely not gonna name them because it just gives them a bigger platform. They shouldn't,
Dr Helen Webberley: you know, we need to start saying that you will be in trouble if you
Dr Helen Webberley: start saying stuff like that. We don't accept that in our society.
Dr Helen Webberley: And play in the, you know, in the medic in the within the NHS, within
Dr Helen Webberley: the, the Royal Colleges, within the Diversity,
Dr Helen Webberley: and within the politics, we need to make sure that those
Dr Helen Webberley: people are not allowed to have a voice. And if they are in any
Dr Helen Webberley: way non Inclusion, and if they are any way prejudiced or biased or discriminatory,
Dr Helen Webberley: then they need to then they need to be penalized for it. But while they're
Dr Helen Webberley: there with power, we we stop we we face a big struggle. And the other
Dr Helen Webberley: thing I feel terribly strongly about is that they their voices are
Dr Helen Webberley: so loud and their voices see amplified and actually some of them
Dr Helen Webberley: are very nasty because because only people who
Dr Helen Webberley: allow that prejudice and biases, and discrimination to to
Dr Helen Webberley: persist in their lives, they are by virtue got Safety
Dr Helen Webberley: streak in them. And so they have nasty loud voices, which they
Dr Helen Webberley: use. Whereas people who are more equal and diverse and
Dr Helen Webberley: inclusive and better better people in society, we're
Dr Helen Webberley: more we don't like to shout quite so loudly. And if we get
Dr Helen Webberley: shouted at, we go into a little shell sometimes and don't allow our voices
Dr Helen Webberley: to be to be so loud. That's not helpful. We need we
Dr Helen Webberley: and if our voices are small, we need to get together and shout
Dr Helen Webberley: together to make sure that our voice is allowed. And the other
Dr Helen Webberley: thing that happen, as you well know, you know, we talked about it earlier, the
Dr Helen Webberley: person who has to hide in their house because they're Joanne, the people are
Dr Helen Webberley: having to hide away again because if they come out, they might get stones thrown
Dr Helen Webberley: at them, and therefore they hide away again. And we've got to just
Dr Helen Webberley: see, come on. Come out. Come stand next to see. And if they throw
Dr Helen Webberley: stones at us, we will divert you divert them and we will push
Dr Helen Webberley: them away together because I am a trans ally and I will help you. So
Dr Helen Webberley: we need trans allies. We need trans people to be given their voices back
Dr Helen Webberley: again, and we need that to be louder than those,
Dr Helen Webberley: those people who have the heart the position at the moment. And
Dr Helen Webberley: also, do you know what, Jo? If there are deaths and if there
Dr Helen Webberley: are suicides and if there is harm that comes to these people
Dr Helen Webberley: because of policies that people have signed and put their name
Dr Helen Webberley: to, then they need to be held to account for those deaths. Yeah. I concur.
Joanne Lockwood: You you mentioned one of your superpowers
Joanne Lockwood: is demonstrating resilience. But its not easy standing
Joanne Lockwood: up and having an opinion. Even as a a cis
Joanne Lockwood: woman yourself, you must get a lot of
Joanne Lockwood: abuse, a lot of threats thrown at you.
Joanne Lockwood: How do you how do you cleanse yourself in self care?
Dr Helen Webberley: Mhmm. I do have very broad shoulders. And and when I
Dr Helen Webberley: know something is right, I will stand up forever until other
Dr Helen Webberley: people will listen with me to to believe that it's right. And
Dr Helen Webberley: I totally believe that this is right. I don't have a single shadow
Dr Helen Webberley: of a doubt that transgender identities exist
Dr Helen Webberley: and that we should include transgender identities amongst all of
Dr Helen Webberley: our other gender identities And that people who are
Dr Helen Webberley: transgender should have the same rights to health and wellness
Dr Helen Webberley: and the most amazing life as anybody else does. And
Dr Helen Webberley: sometimes people want to access medical and surgical
Dr Helen Webberley: care in order to help them to live their best life. I have
Dr Helen Webberley: no doubt at all that all of those things are right, and
Dr Helen Webberley: therefore I will keep shouting. And sometimes people do hurt me and
Dr Helen Webberley: sometimes, you know, sticks and stones may break my bones. Sometimes, you know, people have
Dr Helen Webberley: threatened me, but but I believe so strongly in in what I feel is
Dr Helen Webberley: right. And I do feel that I have the privilege to have an education
Dr Helen Webberley: and a, an eloquent voice. I can
Dr Helen Webberley: counter almost any argument that someone puts to me against what I've just
Dr Helen Webberley: said because I've learned so much about it. And I want to be able to
Dr Helen Webberley: use that, to use that experience, intelligence, eloquence, to
Dr Helen Webberley: help a community that might stutter and stumble when they're asked
Dr Helen Webberley: something so awkward. So it's really important for me to do that.
Dr Helen Webberley: And I do have, I do have a very strong resilience, you know, where
Dr Helen Webberley: many people would chuck their phone or laptop or
Dr Helen Webberley: teddies out of the cot and go, I can't do this anymore. I
Dr Helen Webberley: I will take a deep breath and go, I can do this because it's really
Dr Helen Webberley: important. There are a lot of people that I can personally
Dr Helen Webberley: help and not just by making health care accessible, which I've
Dr Helen Webberley: done to thousands of people, but also by being a voice, being by
Dr Helen Webberley: being ally an ally, and by sharing the experiences and knowledge that I
Dr Helen Webberley: have. see it off of Twitter. That's brilliant. Well, there you
Dr Helen Webberley: go. Helen, that's been an
Joanne Lockwood: amazing conversation. I mean, thank you from
Joanne Lockwood: my own personal story, but, also, thank you for sharing
Joanne Lockwood: your your thoughts, your resilience, and your
Joanne Lockwood: your your perspectives. And we need to hear more thoughts,
Joanne Lockwood: perspectives from people who are. Have the resilience to stand up and be
Joanne Lockwood: counted. Because as you say, there's a huge
Joanne Lockwood: bow wave of of negativity who which is well funded,
Joanne Lockwood: very vocal, has Inclusion that we hear those all the
Joanne Lockwood: time. But we know we know we know that those aren't the majority voices.
Joanne Lockwood: They're just amplified disproportionately, and that there is a lot
Joanne Lockwood: of love and lots of poor hell. And, if any trans people listen to this,
Joanne Lockwood: you have to believe that as well. But the world is not terrible. Feels
Joanne Lockwood: like it sometimes, but, Joanne trans people get on with their lives
Joanne Lockwood: and have a fantastic experience. It doesn't have to be that. So, Helen,
Joanne Lockwood: how can people get hold of you if this is they wanna support you? Obviously,
Joanne Lockwood: the people who wanna troll you know where you are already, but people wanna support
Joanne Lockwood: you. I I am on social media if people want to,
Dr Helen Webberley: reach out to me on Twitter or or LinkedIn. I'm, you know, doctor
Dr Helen Webberley: Helen Webberly, and I'm always listen, always there to listen to friendly
Dr Helen Webberley: people who who want to share experiences or who want to,
Dr Helen Webberley: ask questions. I'm not there for any negative people. And
Dr Helen Webberley: if you wanna if you wanna say anything negative to me about about trans
Dr Helen Webberley: people, believe me, I will not respond. But if you
Dr Helen Webberley: want to to learn, to join, to become an ally, to understand
Dr Helen Webberley: help others understand if you want to understand yourself, reach
Dr Helen Webberley: out. And I think I want to be part of that human wave
Dr Helen Webberley: of people that have an most enormous voice that
Dr Helen Webberley: gets because I want to see this in my lifetime. I'm 54 now. I've got,
Dr Helen Webberley: you know, think I'm I'm past the fifties. So let's, we've got we've got to
Dr Helen Webberley: do this in my lifetime. So come on, let's get our voices together, and start
Dr Helen Webberley: waving those flags and making a and telling those people in power that
Dr Helen Webberley: we are right. Well, I'm 60 next year, and I want to see this in
Joanne Lockwood: my lifetime. So I I'm with you on that. And
Joanne Lockwood: let's anybody who is wants to have their voice amplified,
Joanne Lockwood: get in contact. That's fantastic. Helen, thank you so
Joanne Lockwood: much. Thank you very much, Jo. Thanks for inviting me.
Joanne Lockwood: As we bring this conversation to a close, I want to
Joanne Lockwood: express my deepest gratitude to you, our listener, for
Joanne Lockwood: lending your ear and heart to the cause of inclusion.
Joanne Lockwood: Today's discussion struck a chord. Consider subscribing to
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Joanne Lockwood: community, driving real change. Share this journey with
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Joanne Lockwood: that matter. Got thoughts, stories, or a
Joanne Lockwood: vision to share? I'm all ears. Reach out to jo.Lockwood@seechangehappen.co.uk
Joanne Lockwood: and let's make your voice heard. Until next time. This
Joanne Lockwood: is Joanne Lockwood signing off for the promise to return
Joanne Lockwood: with more enriching narratives that challenge, inspire,
Joanne Lockwood: and unite us all. Here's to fostering a more inclusive world,
Joanne Lockwood: one episode at a time. Catch you on the next bite.