Transgender people in Scotland still face discrimination and delays in the health service, MSPs have been told.

Holyrood's Equal Opportunities Committee heard evidence transgender people were sometimes refused NHS care on the basis they are "too complicated" to treat.

The committee session follows a report from the House of Commons Women and Equalities Committee last month which concluded Britain has ''a long way to go'' to ensure equality for transgender people.

Asked about the situation in Scotland, James Morton, manager of the Scottish Transgender Alliance, told MSPs: "In terms of the NHS, yes there are still problems around discrimination by practitioners.

"I myself have experienced, and so have many people, that change in the way that people are interacting with you when they realise that you're trans and that change in the level of care and concern.

"It's more of a kind of 'well, is this your own fault for having decided to transition, maybe you've kind of harmed your health and it's your own fault', clinicians outing trans people to other clinicians and not respecting people's privacy, misgendering them and sometimes outright refusal of care.

"One of the things that sometimes comes back is particularly around mental health service provisions.

"Say you are depressed after a bereavement or you've got some sort of social anxiety that you are wanting some cognitive behavioural therapy for, we have recognised that people sometimes get refused by their community mental health care provider saying 'oh, you're too complicated because you're trans' or 'well, you're trans so the gender identity clinic should be dealing with your mental health needs'."

The alliance is campaigning to remove the "traumatic and difficult" requirement for psychiatric diagnosis for people who want to change their legal gender on a birth certificate and for a reduction in the age at which people can get legal gender recognition.

Volunteer Allison Ewing said there had been a "huge increase" in the number of children being referred to Sandyford children and adolescent gender identity services in Glasgow, from 67 in 2013 to more than 180 last year.

She said: "Unfortunately, the waiting list is now a year for that and it was three months when my child first came out to me four years ago. That is increasing the distress."

Mr Morton said: "In terms of NHS provision at the moment, it is one day a week of a child adolescent psychiatrist trying to see the entire caseload for Scotland.

"It would be a very, very small drop in the ocean of funding for NHS to double that provision and bring the waiting times down to a reasonable level.

The alliance is also calling for legal recognition for people who do not identify as men or women.

Mr Morton said: "The more than we can move to a system where gender is not made a required answer, the better."