Today we bring you another story from our student investigation scheme, building on a story we've been investigating since 2024. Our lead investigative journalist, Ludovic Parsons, worked with Lee Clarke to uncover a concerning trend.
As ever, the upsetting numbers we publish represent data from only around a quarter of clinics, and only for limited periods of time.
Suicide is preventable; without better data, suicide prevention is being undermined.
The government has produced reports about our journalism in this space, arguing it is the cause of increased suicides in the Trans+ community, instead of asking itself the questions of why so many data sets increasingly show concerning figures about what happens when Trans+ people are not supported.
It's incredibly difficult to build that picture, because of how information is obscured, selectively released or worse still – not kept in the first place.
That's the crucial context of today's story. We need to know more, and without that information, it will be even harder to stop the preventable deaths occurring in the Trans+ UK community.
In solidarity and pride, as always.
Jamie Wareham
Founder of QueerAF
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💬 This week:
- 600 deaths: We reveal how many people have died while under the care of an NHS gender clinic, with a limited data set since 2009.
- Welsh Gender Service: NHS Wales has released the detailed terms of reference for its investigation, which halted the care of hundreds; we examine.
- Conference season: The Conservatives announced a plan to 'depoliticise' classrooms. Sophie Perry examines the Trojan Horse in policy in the Queer Gaze.
Skip the doomscrolling and support queer creatives instead. We are QueerAF – and so are you.
The deadly toll of the trans healthcare crisis: 21 suicides and over 600 other deaths
Exclusive | TL;DR: QueerAF can reveal figures that show 618 people have died while under the care of an NHS gender clinic, at least 21 by suicide. The Freedom of Information requests also expose that while some NHS gender clinics are counting their trans patients who die, others are not – and the clinics that are counting are not doing so in a uniform way. This means that the numbers make for a fragmented dataset, which likely represents only a fraction of the true picture. By Ludovic Parsons and Lee Clarke.
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