Tory MP Crispin Blunt has condemned the “unacceptable crisis in trans healthcare” and demanded the government pay for trans patients to have gender-affirming surgeries abroad. Blunt, who is chair of the APPG on global LGBT+ rights, pointed to the “continued failure” of the NHS to provide an essential gender-affirming surgery for trans men and non-binary people in a letter to the health secretary, Sajid Javid. “It is cruel and unusual not only to leave patients indefinitely without access to surgery or between surgical stages but also expose them to the naturally consequent detrimental effects on their mental health and worsened symptoms of gender dysphoria without access to the specialised mental-health support they require,” Blunt wrote in his 6 September letter.