Feeld x Queer Health: A roundtable on the beauty of transition

Transition is never just one thing. It’s a holistic experience of evolution, and everyone’s story will sound a little different. Still, what brings us together is sharing in both the challenges and the celebration.

That’s why Feeld has partnered with Queer Health, a grassroots initiative supporting better care for queer communities. Together with Not a Phase and LGBT Foundation, Queer Health are championing conversations which create space for vulnerable truths, shared joy, and optimistic activism.  

Here, three community experts sit down to discuss the beauty of becoming, and the most urgent challenges facing the trans+ community. Our speakers are: 

• Joelle Rotsaert, Founder and CEO of Injectual, a medically-led injectable aesthetics clinic group, and co-founder of Transjectual, a gender-affirming aesthetic care brand with an associated charitable fund. Joelle previously scaled Cavendish Clinic from 2 to 10 locations and led its launch into John Lewis. Socials: @injectual @joellerotsaert. 
• Danielle St James (she/her), CEO and founder of Not A Phase, a charity that supports trans adults through community-focused projects, campaigns, and corporate consultancy. Danielle is a prominent figure within the LGBTQ+ community in the UK. After she discovered that there weren’t any UK charities focused solely on supporting trans and gender-diverse adults, Not A Phase was born in 2020. Now an award-winning national organisation, the charity aims to give the trans and gender nonconforming community space to thrive, while working with organizations on D&I strategies to promote positive change. Socials: @danistjames.
• Samuel Moir-Smith, Trans academic, educator, and speaker. @sammoirsmith on Instagram and TikTok.

What encapsulates “the beauty of transition” for you?

Joelle: “In some way shape or form, we are all always transitioning. It’s the idea that aesthetic care, when done with genuine clinical expertise and zero judgment, can be a meaningful part of how someone steps into themselves. Through Transjectual, we’re building a space where that’s taken seriously: [gender-affirming care] is our speciality. Beauty will always be about becoming and evolving.”

Danielle: “The rejection of the version of yourself that society demands, and the claiming of your authentic self.”

Samuel: “The beauty of transition lies in the ability to transform, (re)create, and find oneself. At the start of my transition (over a decade ago), I felt I was prescribed a version of transmasculinity (and cis-normative masculinity) that I had to conform to in order to access medical care, and to be 'believed' as a legitimate person. As I've grown older, and further into my transition, I've recognized these established norms as false ideals, and a restrictive force … The beauty of my transition has been discovering myself through these complex webs of societal norms, constructed narratives, and interrelated identities, crafting a path, against the odds, to live how I was meant to.”

What’s been the most joyful experience related to your transition?

Joelle: “Being able to bring the gift of gender-affirming care to other trans and gender diverse people. It’s the thing I’m most proud of. Now I want to help as many people as possible with free or partially funded care.”

Danielle: “Although I'm now divorced, I remain best mates with my ex-husband, and I would say it was probably our wedding day. Not only because it was beautiful, but because I’d never seen an example of someone like me being able to wear the big dress, and have the big day. It felt really important to be able to be the example that I didn't have.”

Samuel: “I may well be experiencing the most joyful experience related to my transition right now. I have a wonderful girlfriend, who is also trans, and we have a gorgeous and safe home full of love, laughter, open communication, endless support, and an understanding of shared struggle. We also have a newly adopted dog—Archi!” 

“While this all sounds very heteronormative (and sometimes strangely feels so), Maxim and I often speak about how lucky two trans people are to have found each other in this world, and to live happily under the same roof. In both past and current political atmospheres, this would seem an impossibility. Yet we see trans joy everywhere: with each other, in our friends, when we attend Trans+ Pride every year. I hope all trans people get to experience the joy, love, and happiness they deserve.”

We’re here to talk about not just the beauty, but the difficulties experienced by trans people everywhere. What’s the biggest challenge you’ve faced? 

Joelle: “In the beginning of my transition, I’d often go to places where people would turn me away. Transitioning, in general, already comes with so much shame and anxiety; it's such a confronting process for the soul, mind, and body, and for your entire family. It made me determined to create a space that feels welcoming. [Transjectual] is an actual safe place where every single person that works here has pledged to provide the best possible care (including specialised, gender-affirming care).”

Danielle: “I'd say the biggest challenge is the one on the horizon with the EHRC guidance implementation looming,” [which encourages organisations to offer single-sex services only according to ‘biological sex.’] We are living through the most divisive time in our generation to be trans, [it’s] horrible.”

Samuel: “As a trans academic, my research projects—which focus on healthcare inequalities experienced by trans people—have been denied, argued against, and adapted by institutional forces, particularly over questions of legitimacy, importance, and 'political bias.' Much like my medical transition, I still experience gatekeepers that question the authority of my knowledge and the existence of my identity.”

What do you wish more people were paying attention to? What most urgently needs to change?

Joelle: “The current climate is awful right now, and NHS waitlists that stretch 5+ years aren’t just inconvenient, they’re actively killing people.” [1] [2]. “This isn’t abstract for me. If I’d had to wait that long myself, I wouldn’t be here right now. We talk about waitlists like they’re a logistics problem, but for the people on them, especially in trans healthcare, they’re a matter of life and death.” 

Danielle: “I want them to stop looking for buzz phrases on allyship and actually look into what allies can do to support the trans people around them. Everyone has the potential to create lasting change in one way or another.”

Samuel: “I urge everyone to read Histories of the Transgender Child by Jules Gill-Peterson! With the recent legislative changes in the definitions of 'biological sex,' 'woman,' and 'man,' as well as EHRC guidance stating that trans people must now use the incorrect bathrooms, it is more important than ever to understand the history that informed these definitions in the first place.” 

“This book is a full archive of the medical history behind biological sex, and how trans healthcare became formalized through techniques of maintaining normative sex and gender. Honestly, it will change your perspective on how scientific 'fact' is constructed, disseminated, and then formalized as truth. Knowledge will forever be the key to radical change!”

What are you most proud of in your work or activism? What do you feel the biggest responsibility toward?

Joelle: “I'm most proud of building Injectual and Transjectual into places that are actually safe, in the way that matters when you've spent your whole life being failed by healthcare. That means safe for our trans patients, who can come in and get expert-led, medically rigorous gender-affirming aesthetic care without having to explain themselves or brace for judgment. And it means safe for our trans employees too.” 

Danielle: “I think the expectation would be for me to name awards or visible moments, but it's actually just [the fact] that, through my work, I have improved the lives of thousands of trans people through the services that Not A Phase provides all over the UK. I hope that will be what I leave behind.”

Samuel: “I feel the biggest responsibility to topple the established hierarchies of biological sex and gender within current medical knowledge. It's an enormous feat, and one I'm not sure I'll achieve in my lifetime, but it is an important and necessary measure to protect so many individuals from miscategorization, ostracization, and an inherent sense of 'wrongness'—from intersex people, trans people, those with PMOS, and those who are told they are 'wrong' just by virtue of being born.”

How do identity and self-discovery continue to evolve for you?

Joelle: “At the beginning of my transition, my biggest goal was being stealth. I just wanted to disappear into being read as cis and never have to think about being trans again. But that was so disappointing, in a way I wasn’t prepared for. Because [when] people don’t [realize] a trans person is in the room, you find out how transphobic some people are. That was a hard thing to sit with.” 

“What changed it for me was being around queer community. That made me feel proud of the fact that I’m trans, in a way stealth never could have given me. It flipped something: being trans stopped being something to manage or hide, and became something powerful. Now that’s what I try to instill in young trans people: be proud of that identity. Don’t shrink it down to be palatable. It’s one of the most powerful things about you.” 

Danielle: “I think it's probably the same for most people as they get older: I find myself constantly on a journey of tapping into who I am as an individual, rather than who I thought I had to be to fit the mold.”

Samuel: “My identity continues to evolve as long as I continue to push myself into new spaces and experiences. I'm now over a decade into my transition, and my understanding of my identity has changed so much. In a few years I'll be 30, and I wonder what that decade will hold for me. I wonder what it holds for trans people and their rights, too.”

What makes you feel optimistic for the future?

Joelle: “Despite everything—the climate being as awful as it is right now—queer spaces, queer joy, and queer solidarity keep showing up anyway. No matter how hostile things get, we find each other. We build community, we celebrate, and that doesn’t stop. Especially trans sisterhood—the girls at the [Queer Health] panel are some of my best friends. There's something so powerful about the way trans women, or the dolls, show up for each other, hold each other, fight for each other. That bond doesn’t ask permission from the climate.”

Danielle: “I knew what life was like before the heat was turned up, and I believe we will experience those days again. The darkest days come before the dawn.”

Samuel: “My work has shown me the specific places where change is possible, be that curricular reform, clinical guidelines, or medical degree programmes, and these are genuinely grounded forms of hope: knowing where the door is even if it hasn't opened yet. I see people doing that work every day.” 

“Since I transitioned, I've seen the practices of mutual aid, knowledge-sharing, and chosen family blossom into community systems that have far outpaced institutional provisions. The community has always been ahead of institutions, and my optimism also comes from trusting that pattern to continue.”

Feeld supports meaningful experiences of identity and connection for all. You can find out more about Queer Health’s work on their website.