Free Trans Healthcare Training for UK Medical Students Amid LGBTQ+ Education Gaps

A free training course on trans healthcare is being offered to every medical student in the UK during Trans Awareness Week, as concern grows that many future doctors are still leaving medical school without enough preparation to care for LGBTQ+ patients.

Affirm, an online training platform co-founded by consultant clinical psychologist and gender specialist Laura Scarrone Bonhomme, has announced that its CPD-accredited course will be available free of charge to students at UK medical schools from 13 to 20 November. The offer ends on Trans Day of Remembrance, a date that honours trans people whose lives have been lost to anti-trans violence.

The announcement lands at a sensitive moment for medical education. A review commissioned by NHS England and published earlier in the year found that LGBTQ+ health education is still not part of mandatory requirements in UK medical training. For students, patients and educators, the gap is no longer a niche curriculum issue. It affects how confidently and safely doctors can care for people in real clinical settings.

Training during medical school can shape how future doctors approach inclusive care.

What Affirm is offering during Trans Awareness Week

Affirm’s online course is described as CPD-accredited and award-winning. By making it free for one week, the platform is aiming the offer directly at students who may not otherwise have structured access to trans healthcare education through their medical schools.

The timing matters. Trans Awareness Week runs up to Trans Day of Remembrance on 20 November. For many organisations, the week is a chance to raise visibility. In healthcare, visibility alone is not enough. Patients need clinicians who understand how to communicate respectfully, recognise health inequalities, and avoid assumptions that can damage trust.

The offer is open to students at UK medical schools between 13 and 20 November. While a single online course cannot replace a full curriculum, it can give students a more reliable starting point than informal learning, scattered lectures, or leaving them to learn only when they meet trans patients in clinical practice.

That distinction is important. Healthcare education should not depend on chance. If teaching is optional, inconsistent or absent, the quality of care patients receive can vary depending on where a doctor trained, who taught them, and whether they sought out extra learning on their own.

The review found uneven teaching across medical schools

The wider concern comes from an NHS England-commissioned review carried out by researchers at Anglia Ruskin University and the University of Aberdeen. The review found that LGBTQ+ health education remains absent from mandatory requirements in UK medical training.

It also described teaching across medical schools as patchy and inconsistent. Some students may encounter dedicated sessions. Others may receive little or none. In a national health system, that variation creates an obvious problem. Core knowledge about patient care should not be treated as an optional extra.

The report also noted that the General Medical Council’s standards for medical education make no reference to LGBTQ+ health. That gap matters because standards help shape what medical schools prioritise, assess and protect within already crowded curricula.

The largest UK-wide survey of medical students cited in the review found that only one in eight believed they had sufficient knowledge of LGBTQ+ healthcare.

Fewer than half of students in that survey reported receiving any teaching on the subject. That finding points to more than a lack of confidence. It suggests that many students are aware they do not have the grounding they need.

Why this matters for patient care

For patients, feeling safe in a consultation can affect what they disclose, whether they return for follow-up, and whether they seek care early. That is true across healthcare, and it is especially relevant for groups that may have had previous negative experiences with medical services.

Trans patients may attend services for routine care, urgent care, mental health support, reproductive health, screening, long-term conditions, or gender-related care. A doctor does not need to be a specialist in every aspect of trans healthcare to provide respectful treatment. They do need a foundation that helps them avoid avoidable mistakes.

Good education can support doctors to:

• Use names and pronouns respectfully

• Take relevant histories without intrusive or irrelevant questions

• Recognise when gender identity is clinically relevant and when it is not

• Understand that trans patients also need ordinary healthcare

• Know when to seek specialist advice

• Communicate without making patients responsible for teaching the clinician

  
  

These are practical skills. They affect day-to-day consultations, not only specialist gender services.

LGBTQ+ health teaching remains inconsistent across medical schools.

Training cannot be a substitute for curriculum reform

Affirm’s free access offer is timely, but it also highlights a deeper issue. If LGBTQ+ healthcare is not embedded in medical education, students who care about the subject will have to seek it out separately. That risks widening the gap between motivated learners and those who only follow mandatory teaching.

Medical curricula are already crowded. Schools must balance anatomy, pharmacology, pathology, communication skills, ethics, clinical placements and exams. But the findings from the NHS England-commissioned review suggest that LGBTQ+ health is not simply competing for extra space. It is missing from the core expectations that define preparedness for practice.

That absence can send a message, even if unintended. If a topic is not required, assessed or named in standards, students may assume it is secondary. Patients then experience the results in consultations where clinicians seem unsure, uncomfortable or poorly informed.

Embedding LGBTQ+ health more consistently would not mean creating a separate track of medicine. It would mean including relevant examples and teaching across existing subjects, such as general practice, psychiatry, sexual health, endocrinology, public health, ethics and communication skills.

A practical step, but not the final answer

The free course gives UK medical students a chance to strengthen their knowledge now, rather than waiting for broader reform. It may also raise pressure on medical schools, regulators and curriculum designers to treat LGBTQ+ health as a standard part of clinical training.

The strongest message in this announcement is simple: preparation matters. Patients should not have to hope their doctor happened to receive inclusive teaching. Students should not have to fill major gaps alone. And future doctors should graduate with the confidence to provide respectful, informed care to every patient they meet.

This article is for general information only and is not medical advice. For individual health concerns, seek guidance from a qualified healthcare professional.