start your
transition

We aim to send a draft of your report to you within two to three weeks of your appointment. This will give you an opportunity to ensure the report is comprehensive, accurate and true and request any necessary amendments.

After booking we ask you to complete a pre-assessment online questionnaire and provide some form of official photo ID (passport, driving licence, CitizensCard etc). For the assessment itself, there is nothing to prepare. Our advice to patients is that they simply be open and honest. Just be yourself!

It will take us a few days to compile your report, but once this is complete it will be emailed to you securely for you to check through and confirm that it is accurate. Then we will send it on to your hormone clinic or surgeon as well as any other parties involved in your care such as your GP. You will then be free to arrange your appointment with your clinic or surgeon as soon as possible.

The majority of our gender clinic patients only require one appointment. Sometimes, however, follow-up appointments are necessary, this may because the patient has a particularly complex history. It is impossible to give any guarantees that follow-ups will not be necessary until the doctor has met you.

As part of the assessment process, the doctor would like to speak with someone close to you and has known you well for a period of time (at least 6 months and preferably longer). This could be a friend, partner or family member for example. This is to ascertain that what has been discussed in the appointment matches other people’s understanding of your situation regarding your transition. It also helps ensure no follow ups are required. If this is problematic, please speak to our admin team regarding possible alternatives.

As they are two separate procedures, we are not able to provide a referral for both hormone treatment and surgery at the same time. Guidelines around medical transition require there to be some time between commencing different types of treatment. Providing the appropriate length of time has been taken between treatments, we will be happy to see you again for a follow-up appointment for a different referral.

We operate a strict cancellation policy of two working days’ notice of any changes or cancellations. As long as you let us know before two working days ahead of your appointment, we can either reschedule your appointment for a later date or provide a full refund.

Yes, as long as your surgeon is happy to accept both of these from the same clinic. It is worth checking this with your surgeon ahead of booking. If you know who your surgeon is when booking in, we may be able to tell you whether they have been happy to do this for our patients in the past.

A minimum of 12 months of continuous hormone therapy is usually required before you can be assessed for bottom surgery.

While we do not put an expiry date on our assessment reports, most surgeons or clinics, would like your referral to be within 12 months from the date of the assessment. If your report is older than this, they may request that you have a follow up appointment with us before commencing treatment.

Yes. This will be classed as a follow up appointment. Please note, for surgical referrals, we require some time to have passed since you started hormones before providing a second recommendation.

If you already have an assessment report from us, we can provide you with this letter free of charge.

Details on how to apply for this can be found here:

Apply for a Gender Recognition Certificate: How to apply – GOV.UK (www.gov.uk)

Please note, you will need to provide the evidence that you have been living in your experienced gender role for at least two years. Our report can be used as Medical Report A and can be attached to your application. We do not need to complete any aspect of the form on your behalf.

Not always. While it is more typical that transgender men will have top surgery following starting on hormones, it is not always the case. Some non-binary individuals may also choose to have top surgery in the first instance. A decision regarding a recommendation is made on assessment on a case-by-case basis.

Generally, our clinicians would like to see you at least four months after starting hormone therapy before they can assess you again and provide a surgical recommendation.

Yes. Our clinicians have assessed many people who identify as non-binary.

If you have a disability and would prefer an face to face appointment, please let us know. Our consulting room at 70 Harley Street is up one flight of stairs and there is no elevator, however, an alternative room can be arranged if you have mobility issues and sufficient time is given ahead of the appointment to arrange such a space.

If you are hard of hearing/deaf, then we can arrange for your appointment to be held via Teams which has both the chat functionality and live closed captioning to help with your assessment. If you require a BSL interpreter, please note that as we are not working with the NHS or publicly funded, we cannot cover the costs of an interpreter and this would be the responsibility of the patient. We can help arrange an interpreter, should one be needed.

If you are mute, then the assessment can be completed via Teams chat; however, a follow up is likely to be needed due to the additional time needed to complete an assessment in this way.

For any other disabilities, please speak with our admin team regarding the nature of your disability and any difficulties an online or face-to-face assessment may present and we will see what adjustments we can make to ensure your assessment progresses as smoothly as possible.

As a private clinic, unfortunately we are not able to refer any patients to NHS gender services. Currently, there are no clinics in the private sector who can refer to the NHS for gender affirming treatment, however many hormone clinics will try and set up a shared care agreement with your GP. We recommend speaking to those clinics directly for more information on how this works. 

All our clinicians work in the field of general adult mental health. Our psychiatrists (Dr Popelyuk, Dr Leontis and Dr Streeruwitz) have a number of trans or non-binary patients who they treat in their general adult clinic. We can offer assessments for ASD as well as assessment and treatment for ADHD and many other mental health conditions. For more information on the work we do outside of our Gender Clinic, please look at our website at popelyuk.com