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CAMH- Toronto, Ontario.

Started by HayleyVera, May 11, 2010, 10:23:39 PM

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HayleyVera

I spoke with a psychologist and she recommended I make an appointment with CAMH's Gender Identity Clinic for counseling. CAMH requires a referral, so I printed off the form and am getting my doctor or the psychologist I spoke with to fill it out. I was wondering if anyone knows the average length of the waiting list to get an appointment through CAMH.

Thank you, Hayley.


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jennajane

I just responded to a similar post, so I will regurgitate some of it here.  I have never heard anything good about the CAMH (formerly known as the Clark's institute), especially in the treatment of gender variant children.  There are many initiatives to close the CAMH:
http://www.facebook.com/group.php?gid=72087499258
http://www.tsroadmap.com/info/clarke-institute.html
http://questioningtransphobia.wordpress.com/2009/04/28/close-the-camh-gender-identity-clinic-facebook-group/
just to list a few. 

The psychologists that run the place are hated by virtually all TS people I have encountered, and have done nothing for the TS movement.  Try bringing up Blanchard, Lawrence or Zucker with a group of TS's and you will make many of them angry.

I did read a little about the Sherbourne Health Clinic, and they at least appear to have a good program for dealing with issues of trans health and may be a better place to start
http://www.cpath.ca/wp-content/uploads/2009/12/Trans-ProtocolsON.pdf
However, as I understand currently in ON the CAMH program is the only one supported for publicly funded GRS.  This was very similar to the case here in QC when I started in the only program in town that provided publicly funded GRS, but fortunately the rules have changed here last fall, and I am hoping to move to a private psychologist to distance myself of the old program I was in.

Good luck,
jenna!
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gothique11

I wish they would have a better place to go in Ont. Here in Alberta, it's way better -- except now, the government here has shut down GRS/SRS funding... Although the program here wasn't perfect, it's much better than any where else I've heard (also, more way more lenient). The only major down fall was that the wait lists to get into see the doc who could sign the forms got pretty long over time. There were two doctors, but one retired... so, we only had one doctor. Plus, we had a lot of people move to this province because the program was better over all compared to other places and they got funding for Brassard in Montreal. The doc, Dr. Warneke, is a pretty decent guy in his 70s and very understanding.... none of the BS that I hear of that goes on at CAMH, and it was fairly simple. The wait list to go see him ended up getting pretty long (up to a year) because of the amount of clients and the fact you have one guy doing everything. You then had to see him for a year before the GRS would be funding (provinces rules, not his -- so, yeah, some people would get frustrated if they already started RLE and had to still wait that year, but he had no control over that). On average, you'd see him 3-4 times during that year.

Dr. Warneke also continually would stand up for the trans and gay community, often be on TV talking about the importance of the issues and provided good research. In fact, he was instrumental some major human rights cases dealing with the GLBT community. Even recently, he's continuing to lobby/fight the government to get GRS funding back, and also find a decent doctor to replace him when he retires. I think he's almost 80 (maybe he is already in his 80s).

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HayleyVera

The only place in Ontario that I've heard of that is better then CAMH is Sherbourne, and I know for a fact that the waiting list to get into Sherbourne is more then 9 months. And I've heard that you need to get your referral for surgery through CAMH, so I figured why not start there? The main issue with CAMH seems to be that they offer courses or counseling to try and repress your gender dysphoria. I guess I'll try out CAMH, and try to get an appointment at Sherbourne just in case?

Thanks for your advice JennaJane, and I'm sorry to here that Alberta is not funding SRS anymore gothique but thank you again for your feedback.


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