I am Faolan; a chronically ill transgender man in his 20s from Northern Ireland who is seeking a life changing & saving hysterectomy to end many years of intense pain due to extensive endometriosis, recurrent pelvic inflammatory disease, and hormonal problems.

My situation only grows more urgent after a recent week long admission to a gynaecological ward in the Ulster Hospital, at the end of which I was told that I would require an outpatient MRI to check for other potential issues unrelated to endometriosis and PID, of which none were found (and have never been found). The only solution offered was that I would have to spend several long years on a surgical waiting list, whilst being continuously supplied with pain medication and hormone blockers due to the acknowledged severity of my illness.

It should be noted that while the current wait is being attributed to COVID-related health and safety procedures, the NHS has been dragging their heels on this issue for over a year due to not wanting to 'take away my options' as they apply to reproduction. It is readily apparent that the NHS cares more about preserving my ability to have children that I don't want than about providing me with an acceptable quality of life.

Endometriosis and recurrent Pelvic Inflammatory Disease due to immune issues, both of which I suffer from, are individually considered viable reasons under NHS guidelines for having a hysterectomy. I have both of these, and yet I have been consistently refused the most thorough and straightforward approach to getting rid of them despite multiple hospitalisations over the last year being attributed to them.

Instead I am placed in female wards, to the discomfort of myself and the other patients, while the NHS runs the same tests and yields the same results while telling me that they are determined to explore options that do not involve surgery, to the point it defies medical sense. This is a trend that will undoubtedly continue during inevitable further trips to the hospital. Meanwhile, the pain and medical conditions only grow more severe with each passing day, and the only solutions being offered are ineffective plasters on a larger issue. It has reached a point where all aspects of my life, personal, occupational, mental and educational, are being adversely affected, and the only solution offered to me by the NHS is a constant reliance on performance-impairing pain medications that I do not want.

I want to take matters into my own hands, and gain access to a hysterectomy privately through Kingsbridge Private Hospital here in Belfast. The full cost of the consultation and surgery itself will amount to about £7,900; certainly a large price to pay, but one that will give me back my life and my ability to function and live like other people.