Dear Wes Streeting MP, Secretary of State for Health and Social Care,

I am writing to you on behalf of the undersigned, civil society, community groups and LGBTQ+ organisations based in Brighton and Hove as we are deeply concerned about the outcomes of the Cass Review and your department's stubborn insistence to implement it and extend its recommendations without question.

When the Labour government came to power in July, we as organisations were optimistic that the culture wars and damage perpetuated by the previous government were well behind us, particularly those concerning the trans community. In 2017, the previous government ran a comprehensive LGBTQ+ action plan consulting over 100,000 people and stakeholders. On health, there was particular concern for Trans people around long waiting times to access care, the process of legal recognition and their negative experience of gender identity services. The last government repeatedly promised to improve these issues but in our view these improvements have not materialised.

Instead, over the last few years, we have watched, with horror, the increasing hostility towards trans people by the government and in the press - recent figures suggest up to 154 negative articles are published about trans people every single month in the UK. Draft guidance was published for schools which felt deliberately crafted to harm trans people with maximum efficiency. Ministers devised rhetoric that implied trans people should be denied healthcare and it was even suggested that the equality act should be re-written specifically to exclude trans people from accessing public spaces and de facto public life.

Our hope was that the incoming government would recognise the damage that had been done to the trans and wider LGBTQ+ community and immediately commit to righting these wrongs. It is important for any incoming government to start building bridges with civil society and evaluate the mistakes made by the previous administration. In our view, Labour have poured fuel on the fire by blindly implementing the Cass Review and refusing to consult the very community that will suffer its damaging impacts.

Many centre left parties around the world have instead chosen a different pathway. A progressive agenda of trust building, compassion and material improvements to trans lives. We are confused as to why a government that brands itself as ‘progressive’ would shy away from the very progressive change that would uphold these values. Rather than honouring Labour’s manifesto commitment to “remove indignities for trans people who deserve recognition & acceptance,” you have decided to “strip trans young people of their bodily autonomy, undermining important medical principles, such as Gillick Competence” as described by trans people within your party who have campaigned tirelessly, often falling on deaf ears.

We note the excellent and well evidenced letter sent to your department by Trans Actual and we second this letter and its recommendations. In particular, we would like to put on record the scepticism we have for the process in which the Cass Review was commissioned, its governance structure was decided, and Hilary Cass was selected as Chair. Recent protests to raise awareness of these issues, particularly from Trans Kids Deserve Better who delivered a letter to your colleagues in The Department for Education and campaigned outside of your constituency office, have only strengthened our resolve to highlight these issues to you.

Therefore, we call upon you or one of your colleagues from the DHSC to attend an open meeting in Brighton and Hove to answer the three recommendations posed to you in Trans Actual’s letter and outline to our community, in detail, the concrete steps you have in place to improve healthcare access for trans people over your term in government.

If we do not receive a satisfactory response then we will hold a community meeting to consider our next steps.

Yours in hope,