Gender Identity Clinic: May 2011 announcement of changes in clinic practice

Dear community members and partners,

The CAMH Adult Gender Identity Clinic (GIC) announces some new changes in our current practice as part of CAMH’s focus on improving access to care.

As outlined in the World Professional Association for Transgender Health (WPATH) Standards of Care 2001, the eligibility criteria will be set at 18 years of age (changed from 21), and the length of the Real Life Experience (RLE) minimum requirement will be 3 months for hormones (changed from 12), and 12 months for Sex Reassignment Surgery (changed from 24). The parameters of the RLE itself (i.e., documented full-time work, school and/or volunteer work) remain the same. As always, clients must meet the diagnostic criteria, as well as the readiness criteria. We will work with all our clients to achieve an individually tailored care plan.

In striving for an equitable process during these policy changes, we will be undergoing a systematic review of clients currently in our care. Clients who meet the above criteria in our review will be contacted by us and prioritized for hormone or surgery approval appointments.

This will mean some delay in seeing new clients for initial assessments. We ask for your patience during this time as we work towards implementing these service changes. If you are someone who would like an initial assessment, please have your doctor’s office contact the program secretary. We also invite you to visit the Gender Identity Clinic pages of camh.net for additional information.

Clinic Head and psychiatrist Dr. Christopher McIntosh, staff psychologist Dr. Nicola Brown and the rest of the clinic staff welcome you to the clinic and look forward to meeting you.