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A Holyrood equal opportunities committee has heard evidence that Scottish transgender people still face discrimination and delays in the health service.

The committee found that transgender people were refused NHS care based on the fact that they are “too complicated” to treat, which follows a report from the House of Commons Women and Equalities Committee last month.

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.

“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’.”

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