A Service Evaluation of Psycho-Social Support Pathways within Trans and Gender Diverse Healthcare: Interview Data, 2025

Trans and gender diverse (TGD) people experience poorer health outcomes in comparison to their cisgender counterparts. These poor health outcomes for TGD young people are, in part, explained by exposure to minority stress (e.g., discrimination due to their minoritized identities).

Positively, research suggests that social support can be helpful for mediating this relationship between minority stress and poor health outcomes, highlighting that it may be beneficial to integrate social support into gender-affirming care. However, this social support needs to be meaningful (i.e., offer them a sense of belonging and access to psychological support that groups can provide) in order to mitigate against negative health outcomes.

Resultantly, this research conducted a service evaluation of one gender clinic in England. They are the first gender clinic to begin incorporating social support into their model of care. Open-ended survey data was collected from 30 service users, reflecting 10% of total service users.

This evaluation allowed to understand whether social support delivered through an NHS pathway allows meaningful social connections that enhance health to be developed, or whether these are experienced as too artificial in comparison to finding social support through their own volition.