Alice's story

I was peeing frequently and was told I had an enlarged prostate. A few years later, I had a biopsy that showed that I had cancer. 

 

When I was diagnosed, I thought, ‘Great, take the lot away’, until I quickly learnt that the prostate remains after genital reconstructive surgery. At this time, no one treating me for prostate cancer was aware of my gender dysphoria. 

Overall, my experience is that no one who has spoken with me – urologists, GPs or gender specialists at the gender identity clinic – have indicated that they are aware of any specific issues required for a trans woman with prostate cancer. In the end, I had to suggest that my urologist was contacted by the gender identity clinic staff as the urologists were treating me as a male, not as a trans woman.

 

I am currently following the standard 'wait and see' (active surveillance) treatment programme and have my bloods tested every three months for my PSA score. I’ve been told that PSA is a poor indicator, especially for trans women, as finasteride and oestrogen patches will tend to depress PSA levels. So, I feel that I am in a vacuum of sorts.

 

A recommendation from my experience is that earlier exchange of information between the gender identity clinic, GP and urologists would have been good, so that everyone would be treating me as a whole person.