Doctors: We ain’t seen nuthin’ yet

GENDER BINARY Sharon McCutcheonHumanity has spoken: The gender binary narrative is a dead dog.

Doctors in the UK are predicting an unprecedented and massive increase in the number of transgender people seeking out gender services in the future.

“We’ve got to be prepared to start thinking about designing a healthcare service that will allow somewhere around one to three per cent of the population at some point in their lives having a discussion about their gender. Referrals to adult services have increased by 240 per cent over the last five year period”

So says James Palmer, the medical director for specialized services at NHS England.

“There are currently 7,500 adults waiting for an appointment with our services. No other specialist service has seen this growth, anywhere near. As a result there is absolutely not sufficient capacity in the system.”

His conjecture is this is a good thing, particularly that younger people are seeking such services. He and other providers see the average age of patients steadily decreasing as time goes by.

This phenomena causes me to question whether what were doing – offering support to trans and cisgender people in their search for love – may become obsolete as being transgender normalizes.

We talked about this in a recent IN YOUR FACE episode. The plain facts are that younger people are much less bunged up about transgender people than their older contemporaries.

That may portend a future where society naturally embraces transgender people in ways it doesn’t today. If that’s true, and it sure seems to be the case, then older adults who struggle with gender identity will soon be outnumbered, further encouraging the normalization of trans.

I think that’s a great thing and expect I’ll live long enough to see it become reality.

That has me really excited for all kinds of reasons.