If I move to a different area, do I go back to the bottom of the gender clinic waiting list?

Bit of a boring admin question but it is genuinely keeping me awake, so here goes.

I have been on the list for an assessment for a long time. Long enough that I have stopped telling people the number because their faces do a thing. Anyway, I have been offered a job in another part of the country. Good job. The kind you do not get offered twice. And the only thing making me hesitate is the list.

Nobody can tell me whether moving means I keep my place or whether I start again somewhere new. My GP surgery said they "think it transfers" which is not the same as knowing. I have read three different answers on three different websites, all confident, all contradicting each other.

Has anyone actually done this? Moved, mid-wait, and lived to tell the tale? I keep imagining turning down the job for a referral letter and I also keep imagining taking it and losing four years, and I cannot work out which version of me is being stupid.

Not stupid. This is one of the most reasonable things to be frightened of on this whole pathway and I wish someone would just publish a straight answer.

I have not moved myself, but two people in my local group have, and their experiences were completely different from each other, which tells you something about how much of this depends on which services are involved rather than on any rule. One kept her place with no drama. One ended up needing a fresh referral and was, understandably, furious.

The difference as far as I could tell was who did the referring and whether the receiving service ran things the same way. Which is not a satisfying answer. Sorry.

I did it. Moved about two hundred miles, roughly halfway through my wait, for family reasons rather than a job.

What I would tell past me: do not move first and sort it out afterwards. I did it in that order and lost weeks to phone calls. Ring the clinic you are already with BEFORE you go, tell them the date and the new address, and ask them in plain words what happens to your referral and whether they can transfer it or whether the new area needs a new one. Then ask them to put the answer in writing, or send you a copy of your referral and any assessment paperwork, because paper you hold is worth more than a promise you remember.

In my case it did carry over, but only because someone at the old clinic was kind enough to actually make it happen, and I do not think that was guaranteed. Keep every letter. I cannot say that loudly enough. Keep every letter.

Elliot, thank you for asking this out loud, because it comes up privately far more than it does in public and people keep having to solve it alone.

I cannot give you a rule, because there genuinely is not one that holds everywhere: the answer depends on which service holds your referral, which service you are moving to, and how the two of them handle transfers. What I can offer is the shape of the thing. Your referral is a document that exists, and your position in a queue is a fact somebody's system holds. Neither of those disappears because you changed address, but they do not always travel by themselves either. Somebody has to move them, and that somebody is usually you, politely and repeatedly.

Kerry-Anne's advice about paper is the part I would underline hardest. When I was waiting, the single most useful thing I did was keep a folder with every referral, letter and appointment date in it, and a one-line note of who I spoke to and when. It felt slightly absurd at the time. It was not absurd the first time a system said it had no record of me.

One gentler thought, and please take it or leave it. In my second year I noticed I had quietly stopped making decisions about my life, because everything was provisional until the surgery. Turning down a good job is a real cost, and it is worth weighing honestly against a risk that may turn out to be administrative rather than fatal. The site's walkthrough of the pathway, stage by stage sets out which stage triggers which, which may help you see exactly what you would be putting at risk and what you would not.

Take the job.

Sorry, that is glib. But I spent two years not moving in with my partner because I thought it would complicate a referral, and the referral turned out to be the least complicated thing in my life that year. Ask the questions Kerry-Anne listed first. Then take the job.

Adding one thing nobody has mentioned: if you are moving, register with the new GP surgery early rather than on the day something goes wrong, and take copies of your paperwork to the first appointment. A new GP who has never met you and has no record of your history is a slow start, and the fastest way I found to skip that was to hand over a folder.

Also worth asking whether anything else you have arranged is tied to your area, because some of the preparation people do alongside the wait is arranged locally rather than through the clinic. I found out mine was, at an annoying moment.

Update, since threads that never resolve are a menace.

I rang the clinic before doing anything, like everyone said. Got a cautious answer rather than a clean one: they said they would write to the receiving service and that it "should" carry across but they could not promise how the new service would handle it. I asked for copies of everything and got them, which is the bit I am most glad about.

I have accepted the job. Moving in April. I would love to end this with confirmation that it all worked, but I do not have that yet, so consider this a partial update and I will come back when I know. If you are searching this thread in two years because you are in the same spot, sorry, the honest answer is that it depends and you have to ask them yourself. Ask early, get it in writing, keep the letters.