"NHS is exploiting my life" - claims transsexual
8:10am Saturday 31st January 2009
By Joanna Lean »
A TRANSSEXUAL, angry at an NHS advertising campaign that depicts a man wearing makeup, says her lifestyle has been exploited for the sake of a poster.
Lucy Smith thinks the NHS should have been more sensitive to the transsexual community in Warrington when it developed a poster warning women drinkers they could end up looking like men.
“It’s hard enough living in Warrington without this,” said Lucy, a pre-op male to female transsexual.
“People see the posters on the bus and it draws attention to me sat there. I walk down the street and everyone’s looking or shouting,” she said.
Transsexuality is recognised as a medical condition, and the NHS pays for transgender operations.
That NHS Warrington would put up the posters while knowing about the problems transsexuals face has upset Lucy and her friends in the transsexual community.
Not a day goes by without a violent incident or abusive comments towards Lucy, aged 23, and the posters have only brought transsexuality to the forefront of people’s minds, she said.
“They have these pictures that stand out a mile and people will see it and start pointing and making comments and laughing,” she said.
The posters were brought in as part of a hard-hitting campaign to lower excessive drinking levels in women.
Warrington is one of the worst towns in the country for the high level of women who drink too much, and research has shown that excessive drinking can introduce male characteristics to women.
The person on the poster is fictional, made up of different images that were merged together by an artist, a spokesman for NHS Warrington said.
http://www.warringtonguardian.co.uk/news....ssexual
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