The NHS has a catch up programme for people who didn't get the HPV (Gardasil) vaccine at school. I missed out, so I was interested in getting vaccinated. The NHS website tells me that the upper age limit for women in the catch up programme is 25. My only option is to get the vaccine privately which is 475 quid.
However, the NHS has recently launched a catch up programme for men who have sex with men. They can get the vaccine up to age 45. Fine. But this catch up program also applies to trans women who have sex with men, and trans men who have sex with men. This means that (to use the NHS terminology) people assigned male at birth with a male identity, people assigned male at birth with a female identity, and people assigned female at birth with a male identity get the vaccine until age 45. People assigned female at birth with a female identity get the vaccine until 25 only. They have to go private.
This, on its face, seems arbitrarily unfair to me. If the activity is the same (having sex with men), then why are only a sub group of female patients excluded but every other patient gets almost 20 more years to get protected for free?
I want to challenge the fairness of this policy, or at least find out why the NHS has this in place. I think that it quite easily satisfies being discrimination on the basis of sex. I don't know if this is discrimination on the basis of 'gender reassignment' because I don't know if 'gender reassignment' is a symmetrical characteristic (ie, can protect people discriminated against for NOT undergoing gender reassignment.)Can anyone give me advice on how to do this? Can I put a complaint in, or submit a freedom of information request? It does seem unfair, right?