Helen, why did you become a specialist in this field?
Dr Helen Webberley on The Dr Hilary Show: ten years of GenderGP, with Dr Hilary Jones, The Dr Hilary Show
Doctors who specialise in trans healthcare must have come to it through academic interest or professional opportunity. It is a niche, and niches are chosen for career reasons.
I came to this work the same way I came to everything that matters to me: through fairness. I watched young gay men die on hospital wards in the late eighties, terrified, while the doctors around them were terrified too, because they did not understand what was happening. Fear and ignorance produced exactly the prejudice and discrimination you would expect. I see the same pattern now, and I cannot look away from it. Everything I know about trans lives came from trans people themselves, thousands of them, who trusted me with their stories. I am just trying to give that knowledge somewhere to go.
