Help Erika get the gender care she needs privately

Hello there! My name is Erika, a transgender woman in the Northeast of England.

 

For those of you in the know being transgender in the UK, especially England is hard. We face systemic transphobia from both the government and the media, which makes existence for us a highly daunting prospect I have been out for two years and socially transitioned at the same time as I came out. I signed onto the NHS's waiting list for Gender clinics before I came out and have been waiting over two years. But the waiting time can be anywhere up to ten years and that is just for a first appointment as the clinics are drastically understaffed and underfunded. To cap this off it emerged a few months ago that I had never been referred when I was told I had and my Doctors surgery had no record of my referral. This is a disturbingly common occurrence within the NHS.

 

I am at the point where my only option to get the care I need before I am in my mid-thirties is to go private, which is a prospect that I can't afford as even living frugally I cannot put aside money to save up to the amount I would need in a reasonable amount of time.

 

The funds I am hoping to get with you wonderful peoples help will go towards paying for a Private Diagnosis of Gender dysphoria and the like, private endocrinologist appointments as well as other payments I will need to make to go private. My new GP has agreed to do shared care if I can get my bloods, endo and diagnosis done privately. (meaning they will take over the prescription and other things moving forwards.)

 

For those of you that are interested, I plan to go through gender care.
I currently earn 21,000 a year but almost all of that goes straight into rent, bills and paying off debts I at one point accrued while I was unemployed several years ago. After all my outgoing I am often lucky to be left with £150 a month to pay for transportation, groceries and day to day needs. 

My plans for the money are as follows:

 Gendercare initial assessment:  £250 to £350

Follow up assessments:                   £150 to £200

Blood tests:                                             £100 to £110

Endocrine:                                               £100 to £200

 

There is also a significant chance of me having to pay additional costs along the way for additional paperwork and possible visits to councillors.