Find a helpful general practitioner (GP)

If you are self-medicating, one essential service a GP can provide is blood tests. There is more general information on our blood tests page.

GPs have a duty of care to provide blood tests irrespective of their personal opinions about trans people or self-medication. They are a basic health check with the potential to prevent serious harm. Anything else is both negligent and discriminatory.

Providing blood tests does not "enable" someone to self-medicate. Likewise, not providing blood tests will not prevent someone from doing so.

While some GPs provide blood tests to trans patients without issue, others continue to refuse, for which they should be challenged. In the meantime, it is vital to find ways of obtaining blood tests to look after your health as best you can. You can do this by checking the lists of recommended GPs below.

Some GPs may provide tests but claim they cannot interpret the results. We provide general guidelines for analysing your results on the blood test information page. Alternatively, if you contact us we may be able to give more specific advice.

If possible, bringing a friend with you to the GP can be very helpful in providing moral support. One of our peer support coordinators may also be able to accompany you, depending on location and availability.

Recommended GPs

Ireland: we maintain a private list of GPs who will do blood tests. You can request information about this by contacting us. Please let us know approximately what area of the country you are in and we will send you details of a GP in your area if we are aware of any.

If you feel able, there is value in you asking for a blood test from your GP before asking us for a recommendation. Asking your GP pressures them to do tests for trans patients and also helps us collect information on who will or won't carry them out.

If your GP is willing to do blood tests for people who are self-medicating it would be really helpful if you send us their details so we can add them to our list. This is a practical way of showing solidarity and supporting our work.

UK: list of trans-friendly GPs (This is a copy of an archived version of a list originally compiled by Action for Trans Health, so it’s not being maintained and some details may be out of date).