Sligo Inclusive Pride protest to demand better trans healthcare in Sligo

On the last Bank Holiday Monday, the Sligo Inclusive Pride members gathered outside Sligo GPO to demand better trans healthcare. Harper Rooney told the crowd that Ireland has recently been ranked as the worst in the EU for providing healthcare to trans, intersex and gender non-conforming patients. 

The National Gender Service has only one clinic with a growing waiting list. The wait for a first appointment can take up to ten years. Once a person gets an appointment, they can expect to face a barrage of very personal questions. 

"I have been treated with more respect by elderly gentlemen walking up and down the streets of Sligo town than I will by the doctors at this healthcare centre. Patients have come out traumatised by their experiences", Harper said at the protest.  

Harper called for an informed consent model of healthcare that would "provide GPs with the resources they need to allow patients to self-declare and provide direct treatment at local clinics."

Harper referenced the medical approach to gender dysphoria, saying "The model expects to cure you of your dysphoria, to figure out what problems there are, to fix you, but that isn't how gender identity works. People have to find their own journey out, and doctors should be there to empathise, understand, and help the trans patient figure that out together."

Speaking for the Sligo Disabled Persons' Organisation (DPO), Pippa Black picked up on this, saying that part of their activism is public education around moving from the medical model that focuses on a person's impairments to the social model of disability, which looks to remove the social barriers to full inclusion whether they are physical like steps or notional like stereotypes.

In 2010 the World Professional Association for Trans Healthcare (WPATH) described the range of gender experiences as a "common and culturally diverse phenomenon" and called for the depathologisation of trans identities. Making the connection, Pippa said, "Both communities need to move beyond the limits of the medical model and towards social inclusion and acceptance, which is a vitally important aspect of healthcare".

Speaking of her experiences as a homeless single mother, Síog Bancroft said that 53% of all homeless families in Ireland are lone-parent families. She asked, after three and a half years on the social housing waiting list, how a homeless mother, a survivor of domestic violence with PTSD, autism and hypermobility such as herself is not a high enough priority for social housing in Sligo.

Speaking as a non-binary, disabled person and DPO member, Saoirse Black referenced the intersectional discrimination faced by neurodivergent people, who are often turned away on account of their Autism or ADHD diagnosis when seeking gender-confirming treatments.

Sligo Inclusive Pride is a new, intersectional organisation with a civil rights focus. They plan to hold their first AGM before the end of this year. New members are welcome. Interested parties can email the organisation at sligoinclpride@gmail.com.