A Decade of Delay, A Crisis of Care: Demand Urgent Reform for Transgender Healthcare in Ireland

Ten years after the landmark Gender Recognition Act 2015, the promise of dignity and recognition for transgender people in Ireland remains profoundly unfulfilled. The legal right to one’s gender has not been matched by the fundamental human right to the healthcare necessary to live in that gender.

The result is a public health emergency. The state-run National Gender Service (NGS) has effectively collapsed, with waiting lists extending beyond a decade. For transgender youth, there is a complete absence of any public healthcare pathway, abandoning a generation of vulnerable young people. The human cost is staggering, with research linking the inaccessibility of care directly to devastating rates of suicidality and mental distress.

Letter to Minister Carroll MacNeillDownload

This petition calls on the Minister for Health, Jennifer Carroll MacNeill, to end this systemic failure. We demand the dismantling of the current, unfit-for-purpose model and its replacement with a decentralised, community-based system founded on informed consent, in line with international best practice. Crucially, this reform must be a genuine co-production, with the transgender community empowered as equal partners in the design and delivery of their own healthcare.

Your voice is vital to demand justice and end this decade of harm. Add your name to formally petition the Minister for Health.

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Petition for Urgent Reform of Transgender Healthcare in Ireland

Dear Minister Carroll MacNeill,

July 22nd, 2025 will mark ten years since the landmark Gender Recognition Act 2015, the promise of dignity for transgender people in Ireland remains profoundly unfulfilled. The legal right to recognition has not been met with the fundamental human right to healthcare. We are writing to you today to highlight a public health emergency defined by the systemic collapse of transgender healthcare services.

The state-run National Gender Service (NGS) is unfit for purpose. Its centralised, pathologizing model has created waiting lists that extend beyond a decade, fostering a de facto denial of care that stands in stark contrast to the government\’s own Sláintecare principles.

For young people, there is a complete absence of any public healthcare pathway, abandoning a vulnerable generation.

The human cost of this failure is a staggering mental health crisis. A 2013 research report co-funded by the HSE, and conducted by TENI shows that while 81% of transgender people consider suicide before transitioning, this figure drops to just 4% after receiving care. The State’s inaction is causing measurable harm, forcing people towards unregulated online medication or expensive private care abroad, of which only ostracizes trans people further from local care due in part from the NGS requesting GP’s refrain from providing necessary blood testing, a manner that has yet to receive any clear and specific answer too.

This failure is compounded by the HSE\’s systematic refusal to engage with the transgender community in the design of their own services , a practice that directly breaches its own plans on stakeholder involvement.

Despite government acknowledgements that a new model of care is needed , there has been a failure to meaningfully consult with the community. Neither the details of this proposed new model, nor the clinical evidence it is being based on, have been shared with stakeholder groups. This lack of transparency has led to concerns that the State is using poorly supported reviews like the Cass Report as a \”pretext for paralysis\” and to entrench the current, contested and outdated psychiatric model , rather than adopting the decentralised, informed-consent framework recommended by international bodies.

The solutions are clear and based on international best practice. We petition you to immediately commit to dismantling the current failed system. We demand the creation of a National Transgender Healthcare Taskforce, co-designed with the trans community, to establish a decentralised, community-based model of care founded on informed consent, as recommended by the World Health Organisation.

A decade of delay is a decade of harm. The time of repeated acknowledgement has long passed; the time for decisive action is now. We seek not just change, but justice.

Sincerely,



This petition is supported by Gender Rebels CLG | Trans+ Pride Cork | Pride of the Déise |
428 signatures

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