Fun fact! Every queer and allyβincluding myselfβwill happily say that in finnish there are only gender neutral person pronouns, you can still only be marked as either male or female sex in your papers. Youβll just have an additional gender point.
The change that trans people donβt need to be infertile to have their gender affirmed on documents etc is quite recent considering everything.
Two and a half hours later now, according to docs, I have 5 pages of text.
There was a protest taking place at Pride specifically advocating for trans clinics to be taken down to instead install trans care to hospitals in general.
Over a thousand people apparently protested in it, which is a pretty big amount when it comes to Finland as a single specific protest in one spot.
Her name was publicly waved around in the protest with enough information to make the clinics come out with a response claiming slander and doxxing, reporting the event to the leaders of Pride as inexcusable and demanding some kind of action.
Pride reacted by siding with the protesters, highlighting the fact that Pride IS a protest rather than a carnival and that political deciders and influencers are public figures that SHOULD be criticized for words and actions that affect peopleβs lives.
Finnish people will be quick to really mention some things that Finland is so special for. Those things include in the top results, 1. Free and incredible healthcare 2. A free education of great quality. 3. One of the most progressive and safe countries out there for minorities(did I like or not)
I would say healthcare is the most prominent point, though you hear all 3 of these specifically the most.
So let me shed some light on how progressively good healthcare is for trans people.
If youβre neurotypical and have never had depression or any other mental health issues or bad home history with family or anything else, apparently at least according to law, you can request a doctor to send a letter to a trans clinic for you and they will check you out for an interview without further pushes. I have been TOLD.
If you get accepted youβll be marked with a diagnosis of unidentified gender experience disorder and meet a couple(like 3?) of different field professionals who will get together at the end of your meetingsβwhich there will be around 3 maybe 40 minute meetings with each of themβwill gather to discuss everything together and decide if youβre qualified for medical care.
The expected time for this process is
That is an average of 3 meetings in a year.
It is not medical care to your condition, it is screening you with questions to double determine after the interview that you SURELY are trans.
That is, assuming things go swiftly, you take any time offered to you at all and that your doctor doesnβt keep cancelling on you or that your result is positive, which it very may well be βdo it again, inconclusive.β
You should get a diagnosis for a condition that you have been flagged as possessing half a year later since youβve been flagged, at the latest.
This is 3 years, assuming everything goes JUST right.
Finnish trans clinics have been reported to the European union multiple times, but the volunteer organizations advocating for these trans rights get dismissed by the union every time.
I mean, why wouldnβt they??? This wait time is largely affecting TRANS clinics! They arenβt a real serious patient group. Not like depression or something that kills people, which youβll definitely get a diagnosis for earlier than that.
β¦Itβs fairly common for people to take illegal hormones and self medicate.
It WILL be a question in the interview. They WILL ask you if you are taking hormones on your own.
Youβd assume that if someone does, they probably get rejected and are required to stop before being accepted, right? No. I personally know someone who blatantly admitted sheβs taking them and they accepted her in. In fact, there is talk amongst people that apparently you even move faster in the process, because they donβt want you taking illegal hormones.
OH WOW! Thatβs AMAZING?
Right? Right? Until you consider what thatβs going to push. What it DOES push, considering how desperate a lot of trans people are for medical care. Smuggling and self medication with possibly unsafe sellers with possibly unsafe tools with the possibility of harming yourself on the account of not being a healthcare professional in a most definitely not a sterile medical grade environment.
βIβll be more likely to be acceptedβ
βIf others get to have CARE while they need to just wait all that time, why not me?β
βIf Iβm just gonna be pushed back to hurry patients who self medicate, whatβs the point of not being one of them myself?β
Let me tell you how Iβve found it.
This is the second time Iβm writing this post. I spent 4 hours on the last one and to be frank with you, I am exhausted, I donβt remember all the wording and points I really sweated over to phrase right. I was going to just give it up, I canβt do this, I have work to do. I canβt spend even more hours just writing something thatβs going to be so massively overlooked anyhow. But Iβ¦ I need to. Because it does not get talked about. Enough.
Iβ¦ have beenβ¦ blatantly wording to any and all doctors since 2021 that Iβm transgender and I want medical care. Any study I took part in, especially about mental health, I stated I need MEDICAL trans care to improve.
I was told over and over again that to have a doctor send a letter to the trans clinic for me, I needed to be studied for neurodivergency and go to therapy for my trauma and depression.
I went through many period tests of neurodivergency, I even lived at a facility for some time so they could poke at me at all times, because they concluded that just hearing about me every once in a while was insufficient.
They came out with βnot immediately neurodivergent, but a little questionableβ
I was going through therapy, the kind I was told would be good for me.
I did all this for 3 years, still constantly mentioning how the most dire thing I need medical care for is my body and that I want a letter to the trans clinic.
We came to a point where they couldnβt push me for anything more because theyβd kindaβ¦ done whatever they could think of that they were available to just push me in.
I begged them to get me an interview with a transclinic professional. I HAD done therapy for 3 years! The assumption was ONE year if youβve had a past of trauma or depression!
They tried to tell me I should take more neurodivergency tests and maybe I should try this other form of theraphy, but I pushed that I had done everything that was required of me and after some denying, I managed them to communicate between other doctors and have it through that I had, in fact, done all that.
They got me a call and I marked it on my calendar. My interview to trans clinic, finally.
In the call they told me they only accepted the time because I would never shut up about it. And that I need to go to therapy for at least one year. I told them I had. For 3 years. That's what I was told I should take. They told me it was the wrong kind of therapy. I need some specific term of therapy for 1 year minimum. So, rejected.
I did a year of this very specific term of therapy and got a doctor to send me a request letter. I got an interview thatβd be months later.
I had the interview over call. 4 or so years just for this less than hour βmake your caseβ
The doctor was late to the call and I kept staring at a desktop buddy of mine to keep myself together. As silly as that might be. Itβs a character Iβve emotionally leaned on for many years, especially on gender things.
Normally it at least takes a month or so to hear the result over mail on if you got in or not or something, but I pushed at the end
βIs there ANY chance at all that you could possibly tell me if you have even aβ¦ HINT of feeling on the result?β
She smiled at me and told me that Iβm in. Surely. I was in utter shock, I expected to be told that they arenβt allowed to tell. She asked me if I want to see her specifically and I quickly reassured Iβd take any doctor available. Sheβd schedule some times for me the same day. She informed me that Iβd meet a couple of professionals, three meetings each, typically the process is three years.
I wasβ¦ confused on how it could take that long with so few meetings, but I was alsoβ¦ ecstatic! FINALLY! Iβd FINALLY moved onto the ACTUAL process.
I was accepted and marked with βunidentified gender disorderβ in 27.1.2026, now is 8.7.2026
That is almost half a year.
I have had⦠two meetings. And the current professional wants a fourth one.
4+3x2=10 assumed meetings in total as long as I know. If we go at this pace, that will be fulfilled in surely over 3 years.
Thatβs 7+x years just being screened to make sure Iβm definitely nothing else but transgender before I get allowed actual medical care by the system. Assuming I donβt get rejected at the end and have to do the 3 or so years again!
You HAVE to go through the trans clinic to get a proper diagnosis, even if youβre able and willing to pay for surgery treatment from a private doctor.
My professional has cancelled an agreed upon meeting with me at least 3 times in a row. Itβs hard to think about just how many, because itβs so upsetting and I didnβt mark every time.
I may get a cancellation on the day of the appointment.
I may not be notified that my appointment has been cancelled(something that they are required to notify of with a message) outside of dates mysteriously changing to later in a service where I can view some of my patient records.
Both of these may happen at the same time. Last time they did.
The first time I wasnβt notified, I caught it some time earlier, because I kept obsessively checking my records to carve the date and time into my brain for a millionth time. I noticed it wasβ¦ wrong, so I contacted the clinic and got told they swapped the dates because turns out the doctor I personally agreed to meet on the times who said she was free thenβwas now on vacation. The clinic was also maybe a week late to respond to my messages.
The first time I got cancelled, I had been getting ready, Iβd gotten out of work for this, again, because the clinic times were too tight to be able to go to work and do anything more significant than wipe a table down. I got the notification and at that point it was too late to recall that I can actually come to work.
Last time I got both dumped on me. I noticed that morning that the dates read different and with my other experiences I was already nervous. But I had no time to call or contact, waiting even on call could take hours. I had to start heading there then, because what if it WAS a mistake this time and Iβd loose a perfectly fine meeting because of it? Iβd called a day off for this already too!
I got turned away at the front desk after the receptionist checked when I expressed worry I might have been cancelled, but I wasnβt sure. I complained that I had gotten no notice AGAIN and this isnβt the first time Iβve been cancelled on the same day. The receptionist agreed it was bizarre and noted that they had apparently received the information just hours before the appointment that this doctor βhad never been meant to be in todayβ because she was on vacation. (Again.)
β¦Iβve been waiting for maybe a few months now. Next month Iβm supposed to have a video call. It feels so insulting after all this, yet I canβt even feel sure that THAT much will be followed on!
What am I supposed to do on such long periods of nothing?
If any other condition had this long of a wait to be treated, people would think itβs inhumane. But somehow when itβs about trans people, itβs fine. Even so called allies will tell you youβre sounding like a conspiracy theorist when you tell them that transclinics purposefully keep away from treating trans patients, that they are playing a waiting game as long as they can so as many people as possible give in and drop it. Kill themselves or settle to a life of alienation towards their own bodies. Perhaps go back to presenting at cis as if it's easier to completely detach from the identity that most fits you, because the world doesnβt want it.
Even βalliesβ will tell you, βbut they literally only exist to help you! They just donβt have enough clinicsβ
So why donβt they make more? Why are the funds put to trans clinics so drastically different compared to other medical things?
If someone had a condition that deteriorated their bones and they went to a doctor and told the doctor βI know what bone ailment I have. Itβs blablablaβ and the doctor was like βhm! I can clearly see that there is an issue with your bones. Let me mark you as having some kind of bone issue and weβll make sure if itβs thatβ and then 3 years was taken by the efforts of MULTIPLE professionals to determine if they will get help for it or not, just because there were so many people in line. β¦That would just be absurd, would it not? Thatβd be an immediate alarm bell that we need more hospitals and doctors educated on this. Thereβd be headlines. People would worry if they can LAST the wait time on their own. There would be universal demand to gather funds for this so they could ease the wait time for patients like this
Just deal with it on your own. βYouβve survived this long, *******! What were your coping methods? Use those (:β
Thank you. Thank you soβ¦ much. Right? Iβve survived this long, havenβt I? Having survived this long means Iβm incapable of popping like so many other people who survived βxβ, βyβ and βzβ amount of time before dying.
Iβve carried the boulder on my shoulders for a decade. It canβt crush me NOW! Because muscles donβt weaken and energy doesnβt wane with time under pressure. Right?
Sometimes I just stare at my body from the mirror, dissociating. Not every trans person feels detached from their body, some trans people only mind their social gender. I do. I can't stare at a mirror for too long without a preoccupied mind, because I'll start spacing out and it feels hard to snap out of it.
Someone who has body image issues can come to accept themselves. Someone can forgive themselves for being born with a certain bone structure. I can appreciate the biological wonder that the human body, but I cannot identify with it. If someone is severely overweight to the point it's affecting their health very negatively, they CAN try to work it off. It's difficult, but it is possible to do. I cannot operate on myself. I'm not a medical professional with the knowledge, medical grade tools and sterile environment. I'd really prefer to not do hormones by myself for the same reason.
...'M still here, though... hope you will be too.
We need to look out for eachother. If we bow our heads, they'll use it as evidence we never existed in the first place and the people after us are more likely to let it go too. And that's exactly what they want.
Resist eradication of you, your friends and fellow humans. Resist any way you're ABLE to. Even if that is by simply surviving in this world, for now.
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