GenderGP is an online private gender-affirming care service founded by Dr Helen Webberley. It is funded through the fees people pay for consultations and prescriptions, with no NHS or state funding. Its team includes doctors, nurses, and supporting staff who specialise in gender-affirming care and follow WPATH Standards of Care 8. Clinical oversight sits with the registered clinicians on the team. Helen Webberley founded the service but no longer works there.
Why GenderGP exists
I founded GenderGP because the gap between need and provision was, and still is, vast. Public gender services in the UK and in many other countries operate waiting lists that run to years. Trans people, including young people whose puberty is not pausing while the list moves, were being told to wait in ways that caused real, lasting, physical harm. The service was built on a simple idea: gender-affirming care should be safe, evidence-based, and reachable by every trans person, wherever they live. That remains the mission.
The clinical model is online from end to end. Appointments happen remotely, prescriptions are issued digitally, and monitoring is coordinated with the person's own local doctor where possible. That structure is not a workaround: it is the point. A trans person in a rural area, in a country without specialist services, or simply years deep on a waiting list should not be disadvantaged against someone who lives near a well-staffed clinic in a major city.
How GenderGP is funded
GenderGP is a private provider. It receives no NHS funding, no state subsidy, and no charity grant. The service is funded through the fees people pay for consultations, prescriptions, monitoring appointments, and supporting services. That model makes it independent of public commissioning decisions and political pressure on NHS gender services, which matters: gender-affirming care has been one of the most politically contested areas of medicine in the UK over the past several years, and services dependent on public funding have been among the most affected.
The cost of private care is a real barrier for many trans people, and I do not pretend otherwise. That is one of the injustices of the current landscape. GenderGP cannot resolve the structural underfunding of public gender services, but it exists as an accessible route for those who can reach it while that structural problem remains unresolved.
Who is on the team
GenderGP employs a multidisciplinary team. At its core are doctors who specialise in gender-affirming care, supported by nursing staff, patient coordinators, and administrative and technical staff. The clinical team works to current international guidelines, principally the WPATH Standards of Care 8, which represent the current consensus of international gender medicine. Prescribing is done by registered clinicians, and the service operates within the regulatory frameworks of the countries where it provides care.
I am not part of that team. I founded GenderGP, and my connection to its work is as its founder, not as a current clinician or manager. The people delivering care through the service today are the specialists who work there, and they carry that work in their own right.
Clinical governance and oversight
Clinical governance in a remote private service works differently from an NHS outpatient department, but the principles are the same: safe prescribing, adequate monitoring, clear escalation routes, and care that follows evidence-based guidelines. GenderGP's registered clinicians are accountable to the professional regulatory bodies in their own countries, as any doctor or nurse is. That is the mechanism of oversight, and it is the same mechanism that governs private medicine generally.
What GenderGP does not do is operate the assessment-heavy, gatekeeping model that characterised older gender clinic practice and that WPATH itself has moved away from. The current Standards of Care 8 place informed consent at the centre of gender-affirming care, which means that the person receiving care, properly informed of the options, the effects, and the risks, is the one who makes the decision. An informed adult does not need a clinician to decide whether their gender identity is real enough to deserve treatment. That is not a relaxation of oversight; it is a more accurate understanding of what clinical oversight is actually for.
Physiological changes after HRT: what the evidence shows
One question that comes up increasingly in discussions about trans people in sport, in single-sex spaces, and in healthcare settings is whether hormone replacement therapy actually changes the body in meaningful, measurable ways, and what that means for policy. It is worth answering carefully, because the conversation around it is often either over-simplified or weaponised.
The honest answer is: yes, HRT produces real, measurable physiological changes, and the picture is more nuanced than either side of the political debate tends to acknowledge.
For trans women on oestrogen and anti-androgens, the changes over time include reductions in muscle mass and strength, changes in body fat distribution toward a more female-typical pattern, reductions in haematocrit (the concentration of red blood cells, which affects oxygen-carrying capacity), changes in bone density, skin changes, and breast development. These changes are real and they happen. They do not happen overnight, and they do not happen identically in every person: the rate and extent of change depends on the age at which HRT begins, the duration of treatment, individual biology, and other factors.
What research broadly shows is that after several years on HRT, measurable markers of physical performance in trans women move closer to the range typical for cisgender women, though there is variation and the timescales matter. This is not a political claim: it is what physiological measurement finds. The question of whether and when any remaining differences are meaningful in specific contexts, competitive sport being the most contested, is a separate question, and a legitimate one. It deserves honest, evidence-informed policy, not a blanket assumption in either direction.
For trans men on testosterone, the changes are substantial and in some respects more dramatic: significant increases in muscle mass and strength, increases in haematocrit, voice changes, and changes in body composition. Trans men who have been on testosterone for a meaningful period sit physiologically much closer to cisgender men in the markers that tend to matter for physical performance discussions.
Why does this matter for policy? Because policy that treats trans people as permanently defined by the body they had at birth, before any hormonal or surgical intervention, is not engaging with the evidence. And policy that treats all trans people as identical to cisgender people of their gender from the moment of social transition, before any physiological change, is equally inaccurate. Good policy looks at the person, the context, and the evidence, rather than using trans existence as a proxy for a prior body.
For healthcare settings specifically, the implications run in every direction. Trans women on HRT have changed cardiovascular risk profiles, different bone health trajectories, and different screening needs from both cisgender men and cisgender women who have not had HRT. Trans men on testosterone need cervical screening if they have a cervix, and they carry cardiovascular risk profiles that shift toward those associated with higher androgen levels. A healthcare system that ignores these specifics is not protecting people: it is treating trans people as administratively inconvenient rather than as patients with real bodies and real health needs.
The honest conversation about physiological differences after HRT is one I think the trans community and the medical world both benefit from having clearly. Acknowledging that hormones change the body is not a concession to the people who want to exclude trans people from public life. It is simply true, and trans people deserve healthcare, policy, and public understanding built on what is actually true rather than on political convenience from any direction.
Accessing GenderGP
If you are looking for gender-affirming medical care, including hormones, monitoring, or support with a prescription your own doctor will not issue, GenderGP is the place to go. You can find them at gendergp.com. They work with people across many countries, and the online model means geography is much less of a barrier than it is with traditional services.
If there is a topic that you would like me to cover, just let Sammy know.
Written by Dr Helen Webberley, Gender Specialist, Founder of GenderGP, and advocate for trans healthcare and equality.
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