The first gender clinic outside of Melbourne, and likely in regional Australia, has begun to take shape at Gateway Health in Wodonga.
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Young people questioning their gender were often referred to the Royal Children’s Hospital’s Gender Dysphoria Service, where the waiting list could be up to 12 months.
Gateway Health mental health program Loretta Foster said similar support services would soon be available through a multi-disciplinary clinic, catering to children and adolescents.
“You don’t have to see a range of super-specialists in the early stages of questioning your gender,” she said.
“We want to give children and families a means of at least knowing what their options are, and getting support, before time gets to be a real barrier and you need to do radical treatment to make a change in a person’s gender. Even if young people or parents decide they don’t want to go further with gender treatment down the track, you can actually delay puberty while you make that decision.”
You don’t have to see a range of super-specialists in the early stages of questioning your gender
- Gateway Health mental health program manager Loretta Foster
Ms Foster said gender reassignment surgery and similar treatments would still need to happen in Melbourne, but the early steps in the process were the gaps being filled with their service.
“At this clinic, you will have a nurse and a GP who feel confident and can have that fairly complex conversation with you and give you information,” she said.
“We’re recruiting at the moment, so as soon as we get a nurse on board we are hoping within two or three months we would be able to start accepting patients.
“We have a 12-month funding period but we’re very hopeful we would be able to extend that.”
Ms Foster said the service was born out of the WayOut Wodonga early intervention and suicide project.
“If you don’t look like the person your insides tell you you are, that’s devastating and has huge consequences for people’s health later in life,” she said.
“The transgender community are one of the groups most vulnerable in terms of their health status.
“The fact there are a range of options people have available to them is miraculous.
“There might be three or four kids in this community for who we can absolutely change their life, and that’s just thrilling.”
