‘Hormonal drugs’ for transgender people with gold cards expected to be piloted at ‘community health centers’ before expanding nationwide

Progress! “Hormonal drugs” for the public – transgender people “Gold Card” Initially, the NHSO and the Royal College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists assigned “Thai-PATH to start creating service guidelines and reimbursement guidelines before presenting them for certification from the relevant royal colleges. The transgender network revealed that they had talked to the NHSO secretary and expected that the service would be piloted in “community service centers

From the National Health Security Office (NHSO) having a meeting with the Royal College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists of Thailand and the Association for the Development of Transgender and Gender Diversity Health (Thai-PATH) on February 4, 2025 to discuss guidelines for practice, especially in the case of preparation if hormone drugs are to be introduced as a benefit for transgender people.

Natchale Bunyaphisombat, Vice President of Thai-PATH Association and responsible person for the Transgender Happiness Project

Most recently, Natchale Bunyaphisombat, Vice President of the Thai-PATH Association and the person responsible for the Transgender Happiness Project, who also participated in the meeting, gave information to “The Coverage” about the meeting results that the Royal College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists Use the guidelines for providing hormone medicine services for gender confirmation (Guide line) prepared by the Thai-PATH Association as the main principle for operations, which must go through the process and consideration steps from the relevant royal colleges in order. The Thai-PATH Association must expedite the preparation of the guidelines and prepare the guidelines for disbursement according to benefits (Protocol) together with the NHSO as soon as possible. After the preparation of the guidelines is complete, the content must be submitted to the relevant royal colleges, such as the Royal College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists, the Royal College of Surgeons, the Royal College of Psychiatrists, etc., to provide opinions and certification.

Natchale continued that if such services are included in the gold card benefits and start to be provided, the association and the public sector that drives this issue will inspect and follow up on obstacles and barriers that transgender people experience when receiving services in order to collect such information and compile a report for further improvement.

Access to hormone services

Because currently, transgender people in many areas still cannot access all of these services because various service units are still concentrated in Bangkok and major cities such as Khon Kaen, Chiang Mai, etc. Therefore, when there is a hormone service for gender confirmation in the gold card system, the general public who may not live in these provincial cities should also be able to easily access the service.

However, on February 3, 2025, when the Transgender Happiness Network met with Dr. Jadet Thammathataree, Secretary-General of the NHSO, to thank them for their efforts to push for hormone pills for transgender people to be a benefit in the gold card system, they informed the Secretary-General of the NHSO that the public sector is happy to work with the NHSO and other parties to ensure that the Transgender Happiness Network in Thailand can access these services universally.

“Because many civil society organizations, or so-called community service centers, are already providing services related to sexual health, prevention of sexually transmitted diseases, and HIV (HIV and AIDS) to LGBTIQ people and transgender people. They have also registered as service units under Section 3 of the NHSO, such as the Rainbow Sky Association of Thailand, Sister Foundation, M Plus Foundation, and Friends of Service Workers Foundation, etc., all of which have service points spread across the country. In the past, in addition to providing sexual health services, they have also provided consultation services and hormone level measurements for transgender people, especially transgender women, as additional services that were previously unreimbursed.

“We see these service units as It has the potential to act as a mediator between service providers and service recipients to provide hormone medication to transgender people in the same way that sexual health and HIV services are provided, i.e., they come to receive initial services at community service units and coordinate referrals to receive hormones from government health service units,” said the Vice President of Thai-PATH Association.

Kritima Smitthipol, Head of Tangerine Clinic, Institute for HIV Research and Innovation (IHRI)

Kritima Smitpol, Head of Tangerine Clinic, Institute for HIV Research and Innovation (IHRI), provided additional information to “The Coverage” that from the opportunity to talk and discuss with the Secretary-General of the NHSO, it is expected that community health centers, which are health service units for transgender people who are registered as service units under Section 3 with the NHSO, will be the pilot areas for providing hormone medication to service recipients to be used as a model for service units nationwide. There will be further discussions with the NHSO executives about the details next week.

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