Announcing Kindred Clinic Cork!
- 14 hours ago
- 2 min read
Trans Healthcare Action is proud to announce the launch of Kindred Clinic Cork, the first peer-led trans health clinic in Ireland! Created in partnership with the Sexual Health Centre, Kindred Clinic Cork is a small pilot clinic that offers care that is free, safe, local, gender-affirming, and de-pathologised to trans adults living in Cork City & County. Services are centred on self-determination, created by and for trans people, to reduce barriers to health and wellbeing that trans people experience. Care is provided by licensed clinicians working within their professional competency, and viewed through the lens of harm reduction. This allows those who face barriers in accessing services to avail of care friendly, community setting.
Access to gender-affirming healthcare in Ireland is in crisis. Waiting lists are over a decade long and growing, care is gatekept by invasive psychiatric assessments, and trans people are being denied blood tests. There is a desperate need for change, and for more models of care to be explored. The needs and concerns of trans people have long been ignored, which is why the informed consent model based on co-production is the future of gender-affirming care in Ireland. Kindred Clinic Cork has been conceptualised, designed, developed, and implemented through co-production between the trans community and clinicians. This collaborative approach values the lived experiences, perspectives, and expertise of trans people, ultimately leading to the design of more inclusive, effective, and person-centred care.
While this style of clinic is new to Ireland, it is by no means the first of its kind. When designing Kindred, we drew inspiration heavily from Equinox Gender Diverse Health Centre in Victoria, Australia. Like Kindred Clinic Cork, Equinox is a peer-led clinic operating out of a community-centred sexual health service, Thorne Harbor Health. This model has proved effective, successful, and delivers positive outcomes for service users. Kindred Clinic Cork is following a tried and tested model that works.
Ireland is in a position for this model of care to flourish. There already exists a robust network of sexual health clinics across the country that could begin to offer gender-affirming care in addition to their usual services. This would bring Ireland in line with international standards that support the provision of gender-affirming care in primary care settings. It would further align with the classification of transition related care as “Conditions Related to Sexual Health” in the World Health Organization’s International Classification of Diseases 11th Revision. And it would follow in the footsteps of other successful trans health services across the globe like Callen-Lorde Community Health in the United States, Pribta Tangerine Clinic in Thailand, and the aforementioned Equinox Gender Diverse Health Centre in Australia.
Kindred Clinic Cork is a first step in reshaping the landscape of trans healthcare in Ireland. We hope that more sexual health services will join the Sexual Health Centre in offering alternative, community-based models for care throughout the country.
