Several Pride Flags at the Northern Pride Centre

By Tommy Osborne

Transgender Awareness Week

Transgender awareness week brings potential big changes for UNBC

Nov 16, 2023 | 3:00 PM

PRINCE GEORGE – It’s Transgender Awareness Week, and the Northern Pride Centre (NPC) says big things could be on the way for our transgender community soon.

The NPC says they have been working with the UNBC and The Northern Undergraduate Student Society to implement transgender care into the student care plan. While nothing is official yet, Vice-President of the NPC Bo White says they hope to have this care available as early as next fall semester.

“The hope is to get someone who specializes in trans care and knows about things like hormone therapy and gender affirming surgeries, and then that would be provided for them. Whether that was testosterone or estrogen, or maybe looking into getting top surgery or facial feminization surgery, anything like that, they would be referred to a specialist and they would start going through the process that way if they can’t do it through their family physician,” White said.

While transgender care is available in Prince George and White said they personally had no challenges in accessing the services they needed, White said Prince George “mostly just has one major clinic,” so for some other people accessing services could be a challenge in regards to potential wait times. When you factor in the additional fact of people from our surrounding communities accessing services through Prince George, White believes providing this care through UNBC student services is quite important.

“It really makes it a lot more accessible. And I know that some people might come from smaller communities where that might not be accessible at all, especially since in the north we are very limited for people who specialize in gender affirming care.”

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“If they’re just able to get it right away from the university, you don’t have to worry about travel accommodations or anything like that. It would make it so much easier for so many people.”

Given that nothing is official yet and the earliest this care is expected to come is next fall semester, White added there are other things that could help support transgender people that aren’t as costly or require a huge time investment.

“There are always things that we can do, like learning to use proper pronouns, asking people pronouns, providing people with things like binders or binding tape, things that maybe aren’t surgery related, but things that can still help with gender euphoria that not everyone might be able to afford or have access to. It’s just things like that and making sure that people feel comfortable and being able to get what they need without having to worry about certain barriers.”

Transgender Awareness Week will be capped off on November 20 with the Transgender Day of Remembrance.