Living with Depression while Transgender

Putting this text post out mainly because it’s something that, while alarmingly common, is never really discussed or understood by those not directly effected.

Being and both simultaneously depressed and transgender in the UK is it’s own special breed of hellish.

I’ve been living with pretty acute depression since my mid teens. The loss of love for my passions, that restless hole in my chest that makes it hard to get up in the mornings. The suicidal urges and the constant self hate. The over and under eating issues. For the better part of a decade, depression has been a very close companion in my life.

Around the same time I first started dealing with depression, I also had to start dealing with growing dysphoria regarding my own body. Going through puberty triggered the dysphoria, and that in turn is probably what kicked off the depression.

I somewhat assumed in my late teens that dealing with the source of my dysphoria would in turn fix my depression. I didn’t yet understand that the two were connected, but not as intrinsically linked as I first assumed.

fixing the route causes of my dysphoria fixed my dysphoria. I felt better in my skin and more comfortable with my life. I was still battling depression.

The way the UK medical system treats trans people is in many, many ways fucked up. I won’t go in to all of them today, but I do want to talk about the specific ways the NHS is fucked when it comes to depressed trans people.

If you tell a GP you are depressed AND want treatment for being trans, they will only treat you for depression, make you wait several years until they consider your depression a thing of the past, THEN allow you to seek NHS gender treatments.

If you are going through gender treatments and acknowledge depression at best they will accuse your transition of causing the depression and try to convince you it was the wrong choice. At worst they’ll pull you out of your treatment regime, treat you for depression, then let you start the whole damn process of seeing a specialist over from the start.



If you are already living as your target gender, they’ll tell you depression is a sign you were wrong to transition, tell you to try reverting or blame your depression on continuing dysphoric feelings and push you to change more.

DYSPHORIA AND DEPRESSION ARE NOT THE SAME THING!!!!

The fact the NHS largely treats Dysphoria and Depression as interchangable causes so many issues for trans people in the UK. The ways the two are conflated leads to attempts to treat both at once with a single solution.



Cis people deal with depression without it being because of any dysphoria they may have. trans people deal with depression too and it doesn’t have to be due to dysphoria.

The fact the two are so often conflated is the reason I’ve been living with depression for the last decade unmedicated.

If I want to continue getting help for my dysphoria, I have to not acknowledge my depression to the NHS. I have to pick which one I want them to help with.

I could probably do with some damn antidepressants. I’m constantly unmotivated and hollow and empty.

I have to chose between one or the other. In that regard, the NHS is kind of fucked up.