Local Chapter Reports 2016

Find out what Action for Trans Health’s local groups have been up to over the last year. If you’re interested in setting up a local group in your area, or want to be put in touch with the existing chapters, please get in touch at info@actionfortranshealth.org.uk

Liverpool

As a beginning chapter, the Liverpool chapter hasn’t done a great deal so far this year, but we’ve got big plans

Things done:

a few small fundraising stalls, selling ATH merch and Zines at various gigs and Roller Derby events.

lots of printing of said merch.

setting up and running the Ebay shop for the Merch.

organised the first ‘Auction for Trans Health’, which raised £1670.

In the next six months, our plans include:

an “Introduction to Advocacy” training day.

auction for Trans Health 2 (in April).

organising a Celidh and supper for Burns Night as a fundraiser which will actually probably take place in manchester, so we can test out the ‘format’ with cool people that we know so we can do it again later.

roller derby fundraiser scrim.

Nottingham

Action for Trans Health Nottingham was founded over summer this year. We keep people engaged by discussing our activity on a private Facebook page, keeping in touch with people via an email account, and holding monthly meetings. Our first activity was to give out leaflets at Nottingham Pride to attract people who want to get involved in campaigning. At time of writing, we are preparing to hold a stall at a Council Health Fair (which will have finished a month ago) where we will be (have been) asking for trans people’s experience of accessing local services; we have already received accounts of failure to implement best practice at the Nottingham Centre for Gender Dysphoria with regard to titles and pronouns, and in hospitals allocating trans inpatients within gender-segregated wards.

As well as lobbying service providers to resolve these issues, our present goals are: to work with the local Health Shop to develop harm reduction services for people who are self-medicating; to challenge the disappointing decision of local NHS Clinical Commissioning Groups to not provide gamete storage for trans patients starting HRT; and to lobby MPs to raise trans issues in PMQs and to support legislation & policy that benefits trans people. We had the opportunity to raise these in person with the Leader of the Opposition, and were met with a warm response.

Sheffield

The Sheffield Action for Trans Health chapter was founded in January 2016 with an ATH activist training day. We had our first meeting following on from this, trans people came from Sheffield and surrounding areas to discuss healthcare issues in our local community and beyond. Since then we have held monthly meetings and used Basecamp to discuss events, fundraising and projects.

Throughout the year we’ve continued to build a presence in Sheffield, showing solidarity on pickets with junior doctors, holding a fundraiser film screening of Tangerine, having stalls and workshops, raising awareness and funds. We’ve engaged with local NHS trans healthcare services through open meetings. One of our members has designed a new ATH logo which we’ve been using locally and propose be used nationally. We have also organised this year’s ATH conference and fundraiser gig.

In total we have raised over £800 this year, most of which has been put into the solidarity fund with some being invested in screenprinting supplies to print more merchandise to raise further funds and a little towards publicity printing costs.

One of our goals is to have information on which GPs in the Sheffield area are trans-friendly. We will then be able to share this information with local trans people and contact the less trans-friendly GPs to work with them to make their services trans-inclusive. So far we have collated a list of all the GPs in the Sheffield area and written a survey to send out to them.

Manchester

It’s been an active year for Manchester Action for Trans Health. We still struggle to meet regularly and draw new people in, but have shown progress on this front.

We were on pickets supporting junior doctors and took action against companies privatising the NHS with Picket the Profiteers. We’ve organised numerous events, including the Transfeminist Festival, Trans Day of Remembrance Memorials, and Self-Care Days (with massage, reiki and advocacy!). We’ve held advocacy drop-ins at monthly TransMCR meetups organised by LGBT Foundation, and helped them and Rainbow Noir organise an event series for trans people of colour.

We’ve developed a good working relationship with the LGBT Cancer Support Alliance, helping organise a Trans Cancer Study Day at Wythenshawe Hospital. We’ll continue working together over the next year. We’ve also begun talks with Macmillan Cancer Support about improving services for trans people.

We’ve hosted advocacy training in Manchester and trained clinicians and medical students locally. We’ve almost finished a zine about Rage!

We’ve worked with No Prisons Manchester campaigning against plans for a new mega prison in Manchester, highlighting the negative impact of prisons on trans people. Some of us participated in an action at Manchester Pride with Direct Action for Trans Health.

We’re creating an accessible, cheap electrolysis service staffed by a trans electrolysist. We’ve trained someone and almost have the studio ready – just a bit more DIY to do!

Next year we’ll continue strengthening our anti-prisons organising with No Prisons Manchester, do more advocacy training sessions and self-care days.

Leeds

After Jess and Loz ran a training day at the University of Leeds in the Summer of 2015, The Leeds Chapter of Action for Trans Health started meeting at Mesmac from September 2015 on a monthly basis.

Activities which we have been involved in include having an Action for Trans Health presence and stall at the University of Leeds Non-Binary Conference at the beginning of June, hosting the advocacy training day in Leeds on 26th of June, supporting the Junior Doctors Strike in April, and hosting the ‘Big Swish’ Make up Tutorial events at Mesmac (One successful event took place on the 19th of September and there is another one coming up on the 26th of November 2016).

Cass is standing down as the coordinator of the Leeds Chapter as they have moved to Manchester. LJ and Reuben are stepping up to coordinate. We will be managing the handover between November and January.

Plans we have in place for the near future include a Lush fundraiser; a gig fundraiser (planned for February/ spring 2017) and training Cass, Reuben and LJ (and anyone else who wants to come along) as healthcare provider trainers.

There have been many other plans that we would like to take forward in terms of campaigning, advocacy, fundraising, surveys and training.  We really need more people to get involved to make all of this happen. Please contact us at leedsactionfortranshealth@ gmail.com if you are interested in learning more or getting involved.