The Trans-Affirmative Healthcare Pilot Clinic (the clinic) at Mauri Ora Student Health is an innovative, community-based approach to providing gender-affirming hormone therapy to gender-diverse students at Victoria University.
An estimated 1.2 percent of all young New Zealanders identify as transgender or gender-diverse; their gender differs from their sex assigned at birth. A further 2.5 percent report questioning their gender identity. Many gender-diverse people experience gender dysphoria, the distress associated with dissonance between a person’s gender and their body. Gender-affirming hormone therapy (GAHT) is effective in reducing dysphoria and improving mental health and wellbeing. It has traditionally been provided in secondary care settings, but this has created barriers to access and lengthy wait times for care, exacerbating distress and resulting in high health costs.
Members of the Canterbury Women in Construction Working Group brought gender into monitoring and evaluation inside their own organisations. For example, the Stronger Christchurch Infrastructure Rebuild Team (SCIRT) set an overall goal of 13 percent for women in its operational roles by 2016. Between 2013 and 2014 the number of women in trades at SCIRT overall increased by 50 percent.