Part of a broader project on Trans Healthcare and Creativity, this event will explore the past, present and ‘what might have been’ of trans healthcare provision in the UK. What is trans healthcare now, what has it been, and what could it be?

Join us for a roundtable discussion with contributions from speakers from a range of disciplines and practices, including:

Ellis J. Johnson (he/him) is a psychodynamic psychotherapeutic counsellor, supervisor, trainer, consultant and group facilitator, working mainly alongside transgender, non-binary, queer or questioning people. As a transgender man of mixed-heritage, Ellis is passionate about attending to the intersections of race, class, and coloniality in his work; he holds a particular interest in decolonising our understandings of gender, sexuality and spirituality. He delivers training in trans inclusion and anti-racist practice to organisations and therapists across the UK and internationally.

Stephen Whittle OBE is Professor of Equalities Law at Manchester Metropolitan University. In 1992, Stephen was a co-founder of Press for Change (PFC), the UK’s trans rights lobby group. PFC’s very successful campaigns have resulted in several major case law successes at the European Court of Justice and the European Court of Human Rights, which have led to significant legal changes since the mid-1990s, including the Gender Recognition Act 2004, and full protection under the Equality Act 2010. Stephen has advised on transgender rights and law to the UK, Scottish, Irish, Italian, Japanese, Hong Kong, and South African governments, as well as the European Union & the Commission, and the Council of Europe. He regularly advises lawyers and writes briefs, or is an expert witness, for courts worldwide. He has authored many academic papers, non-academic articles, several books and writes a regular blog.

Krishna Istha is a London-based screenwriter, comedian, performance artist and theatre maker. They make socially conscious, form-pushing works about taboo or underrepresented experiences of gender, race and sexual politics. Currently, they are writing on Sex Education (Netflix), is a Barbican Centre Open Lab artist (2022), and is part of the writing team at Die Gute Fabrik (a Copenhagen-based games studio). More recently, they co-directed Jazz and Dice by Naked Productions for BBC Radio 4, was an Arts Admin Bursary Artist (2020-21), and came Runner-Up on Screenshot (a competition for comedy writer-performers hosted by Sister Pictures and South of the River Pictures).

Laura Salisbury is a Professor in Medicine and English Literature at the University of Exeter. She has research and teaching interests in modernist, postmodernist and contemporary fiction; medical humanities; philosophies of temporality, ethics and affect; psychoanalysis; neuroscience and language. With Lisa Baraitser (Birkbeck) she is joint PI on a Wellcome Trust Collaborative Award called ‘Waiting Times’ (2017-2022), a project working to uncover what it means to wait in and for healthcare. She is currently writing a cultural history of waiting in modernity.

Ruth Pearce is a trans health activist and Lecturer in Community Development at the University of Glasgow. Her work explores issues of inequality, marginalisation, power, and transformative political struggle from a trans feminist perspective. She has conducted research on trans health services in the UK, international alternatives to traditional gender clinics, and trans people’s experiences of pregnancy and childbirth. She is the author of “Understanding Trans Health”, plus co-editor of “The Emergence of Trans” and “TERF Wars”. Ruth also plays bass in noise-pop band wormboys, shouts a lot in queer punk trio Dispute Settlement Mechanism, and blogs at http://ruthpearce.net.

This event is accompanied by a writing workshop for trans, non-binary and GNC writers on Friday 29 April, led by Juliet Jacques.

Trans Healthcare and Creativity is funded by the University of Manchester. Our aim is to contribute to current conversations about trans healthcare provision in the UK whilst advocating for the role of creativity in imagining future models of care. Our second event will take place on Tuesday 7th June, on the theme of ‘Possible Futures’. To contact us, email: transhealthcareandcreativity@gmail.com.