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DOCTORS are failing their transgender patients. In the UK, an estimated 1 in 5 general practitioners are , said James Barrett of the British Association of Gender Identity Specialists last week. “Some are remarkably frank, and say: ‘I’m not doing this as it is against my deeply held religious principles’.”

The problem isn’t confined to the UK. Surveys carried out in the US describe in doctor’s offices or hospitals.

What’s more, we know that trans people have a far higher rate of suicide – a 2010 study in the US found that 41 per cent had attempted it; the national average is 1.6 per cent. But we also know that social support, access to hormones or surgery, and reducing transphobia lower the likelihood of a suicide attempt.

Doctors are bound to have the same range of prejudices, personal beliefs and religious views as the rest of us, but they have chosen a profession that . So what’s standing in their way?

“Trans people often say that they have to teach doctors about trans care“

Barrett says in his experience some doctors will say they don’t know enough about how to prescribe the relevant treatments (BMJ, ). This isn’t just an excuse. For example, in the US in 2013, . Those that did gave an average of 45 minutes to the subject. Trans people often point out that .

This lack of education can lead doctors to refer trans patients to mental health clinics, instead of gender identity clinics. As a first port of call, this is wrong – while many people will need counselling, feeling that your gender does not match the one assigned to you at birth does not mean you have a mental disorder.

Part of the problem is how it is defined by the medical community. The World Health Organization’s (ICD) still categorises “gender identity disorders” within the “mental and behavioural disorders” bracket. It also refers to “transsexualism”, which it defines as the desire to live and be accepted as a member of the opposite sex – when in fact many people choose not to identify as either male or female.

“The definition has so many problems I don’t know where to start,” says Timo Nieder, who runs a gender identity clinic at the University Medical Center Hamburg in Germany. Nieder is pushing to change the category’s name to gender incongruence, and remove it entirely from the ICD’s section on mental health disorders, changes that are scheduled to happen next year.

There are other signs that things are moving in the right direction. In March, the UK’s General Medical Council urging doctors to support their trans patients. There are also whispers of plans for the National Health Service to provide fertility-sparing treatments, such as egg or sperm freezing, for all those who start hormone treatment – as they do for cancer patients.

In the meantime, the front-line medical community needs to address the way it is failing to support a group of potentially vulnerable people, and recognise its duty of care.

This article appeared in print under the headline “Doctors must get up to speed on trans issues”