Adult model F1NN5TER says he didn’t expect criticism from within the trans community after revealing they helped fund a gender-affirming care providers in the UK.

The genderfluid influencer, whose real name is Jude Howarth, told PinkNews they expected “different criticism” after announcing that they had helped fund UK nonprofit Anne Healthcare during its early stages in 2024.

Howarth revealed in a YouTube video on Wednesday (19 November) that they donated a sizable portion of money to help the healthcare provider shortly after it was founded last year.

The announcement polarised many within the trans community. While some commended the influencer for donating to help improve healthcare provision in the UK, others criticised Anne Health’s model of care as either overly expensive or “exploitative”.

Anne Healthcare’s membership includes a one-off setup fee of £200 and a monthly fee that operates on a sliding scale. Members pay £150 a month for their first year, £100 for their second, and £50 for their third year onwards.

The membership includes support for accessing medication, blood tests and health checks, counselling, and “ongoing care”. It does not include prescription costs.

Speaking with PinkNews, Howarth, who is not an employee of Anne Healthcare, says that, while he expected “tons of criticism” from the announcement, the type of criticism he and the private clinic received came as a shock.

“We were expecting an awful lot more of people on the right-wing side of things critiquing the services [Anne Health] caters for trans youth. That’s what we were preparing for,” they said. “I didn’t expect the exact critique that came out of it but they’ve been really helpful. We’ve added clarification where clarification was needed … It’s a relatively new service in the grand scheme of things, so critique is really genuinely useful.”

F1NN5TER claims criticism comes from ‘confusion’

Several critics argued the overall monthly cost for the service’s membership was too steep, with some claiming it amounted to £1,800 a year.

One viral post from a user on BlueSky decried Anne Healthcare, saying they believed its price point to be “predatory” calling the clinic “GenderGP with racing stripes”.

Another user, sharing their thoughts on Reddit, said that while they agreed the membership seemed “incredibly expensive”, they were “more confident” about the costs going towards constructive care.

Howarth said that, while they and the team have been using the criticism constructively, the “way it has been critiqued has been quite harsh” and felt it predominantly came from people who “have an issue with me”.

“The people that have been using Anne Health have nothing but praise for it really. [The criticism has] kind of come from people that I know would have an issue with me,” they said. “I saw one person saying, ‘I’ve been on Anne, Anne’s been great. It sucks that he was involved.'”

They admitted that much of the scepticism could have derived from “confusion around what the service actually does” as well as misunderstandings from American audiences over how healthcare systems operate in the UK.

“I also get why [trans people] might be a bit on edge about someone trying to f*** over their community,” they said. “I get why there would be a strong response, but I think that most of that has come from confusion around what the actual service does.

“Some of the response online has been negative from people that just won’t use Google. It’s mostly on Twitter,” they said. “You can’t actually tell someone, like, ‘Hey, just use Google to answer the question you’re asking,’ but, you know, fine.”

Regardless, Howarth says there has been widespread positivity within his community, particularly from trans fans, many of whom have shifted from DIY – the act of buying hormones with no medical oversight – to Anne Healthcare.

Writing for TransVitae, journalist Bricki argued much of the backlash came not from the clinic’s provisions, but the “emotional landscape the news landed in”.

“Many trans people in the UK have spent years waiting for NHS appointments that feel like they will never come. Parents of trans youth have watched public services collapse or get politicised beyond recognition. Adults navigating transition have been told to wait, wait, and wait some more. So when a private clinic appears, especially one promising faster access, the reaction is shaped by desperation, hope, fear, and exhaustion all at once,” they said.

Trans people are ‘rightfully angry’ over trans healthcare in the UK

The clinic currently works with at least 97 trans people according to its co-director Lizzie Jordan, who said she has seen overwhelming volumes of support and praise.

“Just Google what the community are saying about us and that’s where you’ll see our patients wax lyrical about the respect that they receive, the care that they receive, and how happy they are to be able to access our services. That, for us, is the best testament.”

Jordan said trans people are “rightfully angry” about the state of healthcare in the UK, particularly towards the wait times in the NHS and the level of care from certain private providers, but argued the answer to the problem is to give trans people more options.

“The last thing we need is only a very small number of providers providing a really bad level of care. And actually, unfortunately, the level of care that we offer and provide is really high, and therefore costs money.

“There are always people who want things cheaper, and there will always be people who want things to be free. And while we totally agree that this kind of care should be available free of charge, it’s not going to happen any time soon.”

She noted that, not only is the private healthcare non-profit contactable for all people Monday to Friday from 9am to 5pm, it also has several toolkits available to help trans people find the right care.

“We have lots of people on our books who do DIY and actually want to have the additional support of knowing that somebody’s looking over their bloods and keeping an eye on them,” she said.

“We’ve got some really good data analysis on patients moving their care to us and what that looks like for their levels and the quality of life that they had on from existing providers,” Jordan noted. “Eighty per cent of those patients came from the largest online gender provider and nearly every single patient’s [hormone levels] were not in the ranges they should be. They’re being charged for a service that is not delivering what it should be doing.

“The community’s voice is very vocal around paying for substandard care and quite rightly so. People are angry and frustrated at these providers … people are not willing to take that risk and so that’s why we felt that we had to do something.”

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