Celebrating Transgender Awareness Week with the Butterfly Clinic

Celebrating Transgender Awareness Week with Butterfly Clinic

To honour Transgender Awareness Week, we spoke to Laura Rose and Hayley Holloway from Butterfly, a dedicated sexual health service for transgender and non-binary people run by Axess Sexual Health. We discuss how and why the clinic was founded, the best things about working in the team and look forward to plans for Butterfly’s future.

What is Butterfly, and where is it based?

Butterfly is a sexual health clinic for trans and non-binary folk. Based on David Lewis Street on Mondays and at The Arch in Knowsley, it is the only clinic of its kind in the North of England.

How did Butterfly start and why?

Butterfly started in 2019. Previously, we had trans patients visit our regular sexual health service and it got us wondering how we could improve the patient journey for them. We went onto engage with the trans community and after a lot of collaborative working to understand the barriers that trans people face, the clinic opened – our patients even chose the name Butterfly. Last year, we also opened to nonbinary patients.

What services do Butterfly offer?

At Butterfly we offer full sexual health screens, PEP and PrEP discussion, vaccine administration and cervical cytology to name a few. A full list of services can be found at axess.clinic!

How are Butterfly celebrating trans awareness week?

This week, we launched our walk-in service in Liverpool City Centre, making it even easier for trans patients to get the help they need. We are also working collaboratively with gender dysphoria clinical service C-MAGIC at our Hanover location on Mondays – this bridging method means more advice and better care is available to patients. Our social media will also mark the occasion, too!

And finally, what are the future plans for Butterfly?

We aim to open a Butterfly clinic in every one of our Axess areas (Cheshire East, Warrington and Halton).