Transgender people are facing waiting lists of up to six months to see a specialist and a lack of training is compounding the issue, a leading specialist says.

Gynaecologist Rosemary Jones is among the very few doctors in Adelaide that specialise in gender work.

She considered access to specially trained health professionals, including psychiatrists, vital for transgender men and women.

"Somebody who's not familiar with gender work makes all sorts of mistakes," Dr Jones said.

"Don't forget these people we see are tender flowers, they're on the verge of breakdown quite often.

"Nearly half of the people [undergoing transition] kill themselves or damage themselves because they're so desperate."

She said there was a serious lack of training in the area.

"We're only just getting to the point of thinking about doing post-graduate training, possibly even issuing certificates, so it's all very early," Dr Jones said.

Transgenders need 'all the support they can get'

Sam Matthews, 29, transitioned about three years ago and said transgender people needed all the support they could get.

Gynaecologist Dr Rosemary Jones said there was lack of training for gender specialists. ( ABC News )

"We go on these very long waiting lists to get in to see a specialist and that can be a really crucial time for a lot of people, in terms of how they feel emotionally, so really we need more counsellors and medical practitioners who understand us and understand how to help us," she said.

Ms Matthews said she struggled with her gender identity from a very young age and by her early 20s it dominated every thought.

"At the age of 26 I reached a point, I couldn't take it any longer, or at least I was really faced with that decision of do I continue to live my life as a miserable, sad person?" she said.

"Or do I live my life to the fullest and take the other half of my soul along for the ride?

"I so wanted to be something that I wasn't, and it was a secret that I had to eventually come out with, and now I couldn't be happier."

Housing and employment hard to find

As well as long waiting lists to work with gender specialists, Ms Matthews said hurdles for the trans-community included finding housing and employment.

Sam Matthews transitioned at the age of 26. ( Supplied: Sam Matthews )

"Services may not know whether to place a person in male housing or female housing, and so they just won't house them at all," she said.

South Australian Premier Jay Weatherill said improving transgender services was high on the Government's agenda.

"If people are feeling as though the services they need to make this very important decision in their life and to be supported in it, are not there, then we need to respond to that," he said.

But the Premier was left red-faced in September after a private member's bill he put forward to allow people to change the gender on their birth certificate without undergoing sex-change surgery was voted down.

He re-introduced it to Parliament this week, with some amendments, and a fresh vote will happen before the end of the year.

"We needed to have better discussions," Mr Weatherill said.

"Some people, I think, were taken by surprise when the vote was called on, so yes we think this will achieve in large measure all that we were seeking to achieve in the first bill."