Queering Creative Health takeover: Lu Wilson reflects on research commissioned by QUEERCIRCLE in 2024 into best practice around trans youth work.
In a time and space where decisions are increasingly being made about trans young people’s lives, QUEERCIRCLE invited me to produce research that centred what trans young people say they need from services and ‘queer space’. For the research, I started by interviewing six trans young people, and specialists working with trans young people. I then worked with two trans young people to facilitate a creative research workshop with an LGBTQ+ youth group aged 11-25. I collated the data into 10 key points, which the research participants reviewed, fed into, and edited, before the research was published as a ‘Transifesto’ (QUEERCIRCLE 2025).
Image: QUEERCIRCLE
Trans time can be different. Trans people come into new or more authentic identities at different ages, sometimes with new names and pronouns. Those who medically transition may go through second puberties because of gender-affirming hormones. Nemo, a trans young person I interviewed, elaborates: “Being trans we have a different age range associated with the label ‘young person’ because a lot of us find out who we are a lot later.” There is no one way of being trans. All ways are valid: some trans people may not want to medically transition and others have fluid identities which change over time. As therapist Amanda Middleton writes: “Gender is always moving, just as time does” (Middleton 2022). Trans trajectories, that is, how trans people choose to live their lives to be most themselves at any point, are unique, and can be non-linear and fluid.
Another broader timeline impacting trans time and individual trans trajectories comes in the form of family systems, cultural norms and power structures influencing if, when and to what extent trans people are safe and able to be themselves. The political context in the UK when I started this research for QUEERCIRCLE in early 2024 impacted trans trajectories. In March, The Gender Identity Development Service, a specialised NHS service for trans young people, closed after the Cass Review “found the current service ‘unsustainable’” (Sander 2024). Furthermore, puberty blockers – which delay the changes of puberty – were banned for trans young people under 18 (Department for Health and Social Care 2024). The charity TransActual described these changes as aiming “to restrict any kind of transition for young people” (TransActual 2024), slowing down potential trajectories through reduced access to gender-affirming healthcare. In our interview, Nemo expressed that the situation around trans rights is: “not getting better, it’s getting worse, and we need to make sure that we are accommodating for that so everyone can be as OK as they can be.” UK political systems are restricting trans people’s ability to make decisions about their trajectories, so how can we create opportunities for them to reclaim that power?
Smizz, Stella, Miggy, Lu and Talia at the Transifesto sharing event in October 2024. Image: QUEERCIRCLE.
What trans people want
Firstly, we can ask trans people what they want for their lives and trajectories. Many decisions about trans lives are made by people who are not trans. The Cass Review has been criticised because it “deliberately excluded transgender people from key roles in research, analysis” (Pearce 2024). The aim of QUEERCIRCLE’s research commission was for trans young people to reclaim power to express what they need. Another research collaborator, Stella, summarised why this research prioritised hearing from trans young people directly: “We are vulnerable as a group […], that does not mean that we are not independent, autonomous, and agentive human beings who are capable.” By listening to what trans people want from services, trans people can reclaim some control.
Secondly, we can create more ‘queer spaces’ for trans people to be themselves more safely, even if they are not able to be out in other contexts. One research outcome was learning that trans young people want more trans youth services (QUEERCIRCLE 2025). Amanda Middleton stresses the importance of gender-affirming spaces: “The people in most distress […] are trans people who need […] good spaces where they are honoured and […] can think with other people about what might come next and how they want to exist in the world” (Sezer and Julie 2024). In LGBTQ+ youth groups I often witness trans young people’s euphoria when they say their chosen names and pronouns for the first time and feel their true identities reflected back at them, especially when they can’t be out at home or school. Similarly, the QUEERCIRCLE research culminated in a five-hour Transifesto workshop which brought together 30 trans young people and trans youth services and received overwhelming feedback that attendees want more similar opportunities. The attendees also spoke about the fundamental need for spaces that prioritise intersectionality, and where they can feel the full range of emotions that come from being trans.
Thirdly, we can create opportunities for trans young people to meet trans adults and see possibilities for their futures. Because of increased suicide rates amongst the trans community, with 45 per cent of trans young people having attempted suicide (Stonewall 2017), the belief prevails that trans people die younger. As one of my research collaborators Ruby explained in our interview, it can therefore be “really hard to envisage your life as a trans adult or trans elderly person”. Another research outcome was that trans young people want more opportunities to meet trans adults because, “if you can’t see it, you can’t be it” (Ruby). After I co-presented the research at a QUEERCIRCLE event, I was approached by a trans facilitator, Tomara, to create an intergenerational project with QUEERCIRCLE for trans young people to meet trans adults, learn from each other and see possibilities for their futures.
Image: QUEERCIRCLE
Unfortunately the political timeline for trans rights has gone backwards since I started this research in 2024. In April 2025 the Supreme Court made a decision that ‘sex’ refers to people’s gender assigned at birth, which according to Human Rights Watch ‘threatens the rights of trans people’ and is ‘severely regressive’ . In July, the government released new Relationships and Sex Education Guidance which, according to Gendered Intelligence, has “weakened schools’ responsibilities to provide equal and fair education about transgender people”. As the political timeline for trans rights in the UK goes backwards, these are three timely but relatively easily implementable ways to create opportunities for trans people to reclaim their trajectories. We can listen to what trans people want, create spaces for trans people to be more safely themselves, and create opportunities for trans young people to meet trans adults.
The importance of community
A final way to support trans people’s trajectories is through community. Alok V Menon, a trans artist, said: “My superpower is community” in relation to transness (Man Enough Podcast 2021). It was through community that QUEERCIRCLE asked me to do this research into what trans young people want and need, and Tomara approached me to co-create a trans-generational project. Fortunately, the community supporting trans people is growing: over 100,000 people attended Trans Pride in London in July 2025, which became the biggest protest of its kind. While the political context for trans people is going backwards, the community of people supporting trans trajectories is growing, ultimately creating more ways for trans people to be themselves.
View the full QUEERCIRCLE Queering Creative Health takeover.
About the author
Lu Wilson (they/them) is an LGBTQ+ Mental Health Youth Worker, facilitator and researcher. Lu’s anthropological work focuses on queer storytelling and queering traditional power dynamics between researcher and research ‘subjects’ to decolonise research. They facilitate one-to-one and group sessions using a youth-led, creative and intersectional approach on themes including gender, sexuality, relationships, mental health and identity.
References
Department for Health and Social Care. 2024. ‘Ban on puberty blockers to be made indefinite on experts’ advice.’ Press Release. Gov.UK. https://www.gov.uk/government/news/ban-on-puberty-blockers-to-be-made-indefinite-on-experts-advice. Accessed 13 September 2025.
Man Enough Podcast. 2021. ‘ALOK: The Urgent Need for Compassion’. The Man Enough Podcast. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Tq3C9R8HNUQ. Accessed 13 September 2025.
Middleton, Amanda. 2022. ‘Adventures in time, gender and therapeutic practice. Embracing a queer systemic way of working with gender expansive families.’ Murmurations: Journal of Transformative Systemic Practice Vol. 5 Issue 2. https://doi.org/10.28963/5.2.4.
Pearce, Ruth. 2024. ‘The UK’s Cass Review Badly Fails Trans Children.’ University of Glasgow Social Sciences Hub. https://www.gla.ac.uk/explore/glasgowsocialscienceshub/resources/all/headline_1105099_en.html. Accessed 13 September 2025.
Sander, Bex. 2024. ‘Tavistock: Britain’s biggest gender identity clinic has closed.’ Tortoise Media https://www.tortoisemedia.com/2024/04/02/tavistock-britains-biggest-gender-identity-clinic-has-closed. Accessed 13 September 2025.
Sezer and Julie. 2024. ‘Gender, Sexuality and Adventures Beyond the Binary: In conversation with Amanda Middleton.’ The Systemic Way podcast, Season 7, Episode 69. https://thesystemicway.buzzsprout.com/1724804/episodes/14926892-gender-sexuality-and-adventures-beyond-the-binary-in-conversation-with-amanda-middleton. Accessed 13 September 2025.
Stonewall. 2017. ‘School Report. The experiences of lesbian, gay, bi and trans young people in Britain’s schools in 2017.’ Website. https://www.stonewall.org.uk/resources/school-report-2017. Accessed 13 September 2025.
TransActual. 2024. ‘TransActual statement on NHS England’s decision to stop commissioning puberty blockers.’ Press Release. https://transactual.org.uk/blog/2024/03/12/transactual-statement-on-nhs-englands-decision-to-stop-commissioning-puberty-blockers/. Accessed 13 September 2025.
QUEERCIRCLE. 2025. ‘Young People’s Transifesto’ https://queercircle.org/transifesto. Accessed 13 September 2025.
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