Series: A transgender journey

'They are the gatekeepers of my physical transition'

As Juliet Jacques continues on her journey of gender reassignment, she reaches a stage feared by many: a visit to the Gender Identity Clinic

    * Juliet Jacques
    * guardian.co.uk, Thursday 23 September 2010 10.56 BST

http://www.guardian.co.uk/lifeandstyle/2010/sep/22/transgender-charing-cross

Rightly or wrongly, two words strike fear into the transsexual community: Charing Cross. The BBC's groundbreaking trilogy of films, A Change of Sex, first screened in 1980, seriously damaged the Gender Identity Clinic's reputation, demonstrating (as this site puts it) the "arrogance" of the psychiatrists working with Julia Grant, at a time when certain 'feminists' were launching searing attacks not just on male-to-female transsexuals but also those providing their services. Thirty years later, the clinic - now under the auspices of West London Mental Health Trust but still widely known as 'Charing Cross' - struggles to shake a reputation for being cold and overly demanding. This is not always diminished by the experiences posted online by patients, some of whom have reservations about gender services being 'pathologised' under mental health (rather than being treated as an endocrine issue).

That Guardian article is one for the bookmarks.

It's really quite reassuring