A WPATH readiness assessment is a mental health assessment that follows the standards set by the World Professional Association for Transgender Health (WPATH, SOC8). It's sometimes required to access medical gender affirmation like hormone therapy or surgeries. The goal of a WPATH assessment is to ensure that you are informed, supported and safe as you undergo medical gender affirmation.

Our aim is not to decide whether you are 'trans enough'. Our job is to work together to reflect on whether you are safe and well supported for hormones or surgery.

Under Australian clinical guidelines, many surgeons and hormone prescribers require a letter of readiness first. These letters need to address the criteria set out in WPATH's Standards of Care (SOC8).

We acknowledge that some mental health professionals have a history of unnecessarily stopping or slowing down access to medical affirmation. There is still a lot of healing and improvement to be done in this area. We hope that WPATH letters are needed less frequently in future but until then, we believe that the process should be full of respect, empathy and empowerment for each client.

We need to explore three things;

1. Your story. We will talk about how your gender and your overall identity has grown over time, from childhood to now. This means talking about your relationships, education, work, sexuality and hopes for the future.

2. Your mental health. No one's mental health is perfect and that's okay. We just need to agree that your mental health is stable and likely to be the same or better after hormones or surgery. We also need to make sure that you have the right kind of support if you have mental health difficulties along the way.

3. Your ability to give informed consent. We need to agree that you are able to understand the potential risks and benefits of hormones/surgery. This means the potential risks and benefits to your body, mental health, relationships and plans for the future. We don't need things to be risk-free, we just want to know that you can make good decisions and get support when you need it.

To complete a WPATH assessment, we need to be thorough and build a good professional relationship. For this reason, assessments take at least three sessions and may require more. We will give you lots of warning if we feel that you will need more than three sessions.

We have a responsibility to ensure that assessments are done in a responsible and safe way and are a reasonable length. For this reason, we do not offer single-session assessments in any circumstances.

We suggest that you contact us at least 3 months before your surgery date to allow time to book appointments, complete the assessment and write the letter.

This happens occasionally. Usually when this happens, most criteria are met but we just need to work together to find you some more supports while you plan for hormones or surgery.

Very rarely, someone will clearly not meet WPATH criteria. In these rare instances, we let people know as soon as possible and offer them a chance to be linked in with other support services.

Every WPATH readiness assessment looks different, but they usually follow this pattern;

1. We will talk a little via email or the phone to make sure that I'm the right fit for you.

2. I will send you some written questionnaires and some information about what to expect at our first session.

3. We will have at least four sessions, either in person or via telehealth.

4. Within a few weeks of the last session, I will write a WPATH letter to your surgeon or hormone prescriber.

Yes, absolutely.

We are passionate about making sure that neurodivergent TGDNB people feel supported to make decisions about their medical affirmation. We firmly agree with the WPATH SOC8, which states that neurodivergent people should be supported to make informed decisions about their gender affirmation.

Yes, we can do full assessments via telehealth (live video and audio).

We can not do assessment sessions via telephone (audio only) or messages (text only).

We try our best to be as accessible as possible but unfortunately can only offer face-to-face or video sessions for safety and legal reasons.