The province of Alberta, Canada, has done an aboutface and reinstated funding for gender-reassignment surgeries on the public health-care plan, two years after delisting the procedure as a money-saving measure, reports the Global News.
Health Minister Fred Horne says the policy change, which will enable up to 25 people to undergo gender reassignment a year, was made simply because “it was the right thing to do.”
“This isn’t about being forced to do something,” says the Institute for Sexual Minority Studies and Services’ Kristopher Wells. “The Alberta government doing something because they know it’s the right thing. And that is a huge step forward, not only building a relationship with the LGBT community, but showing to the rest of the world that Alberta values human rights.”
Wells called the move “historic.”
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The change will go into effect on June 15, still in time for Pride month. “I was pretty shocked—we weren’t expecting this to go through this soon at all,” says trans activist Angela Reid. “All the messages on Facebook and friends texting me—[I] just lit up with joy.”
Emily
I’m so glad that Alberta has made this decision. It truly is just doing what’s right andI hope all the other provinces do the same.
Jabaroo
Wonderfully news to come out of a neighboring province!
Clockwork
Transgenders love to have their transition paid for; only makes them look more helpless to choose their own destiny.
I know, I know, you’ll kill yourself without the subsidized surgery.
Jabaroo
@Clockwork: Most people simple cannot afford the surgeries.
George
@Clockwork: , I seriously do not know what to say to you other than, your ignorance is showing!
Transgender surgery costs an arm and a leg, and with people being ignorant and transphobic, it can be a long and hard journey. I know that I want my transition to be paid for in some way, and I’m not even transitioning fully! It is not for us to look “more helpless to choose their own destiny” it is to become ourself in every aspect. If we could not be stronger we would!
I particularly hate this “I know, I know, you’ll kill yourself without the subsidized surgery.” – Yea. some transgender people need the surgery because here is our life, to live as the wrong sex is to be in a costume, and to be in that costume, is tiring. The only ways out to be our selves is through transitioning or death, because it is so hard to live as someone you are not. I know you cannot understand that as a cisgender person, but it does not give you the right to be this way and make these comments.
Clockwork
@George:
>I know you cannot understand that as a cisgender person, but it does not give you the
>right to be this way and make these comments.
Sorry baby I’m a trans woman, have known and met hundreds of transgenders;
And I stand by my comments.
JayKay
LOL, Canada…
Jabaroo
@JayKay: We also have gay marriage legalized, LOL…
Daez
@Clockwork: This is bullshit. For starters, the transgendered people pay taxes as well which goes to pay for their healthcare. Also, this is like arguing that people with severe mental illnesses should not be given any treatment they cannot afford to pay for.
I am NOT equating being transgendered with having a mental disease, but being trapped in the wrong body does often lead to depression and other serious mental issues.
Daez
@Clockwork: It was nice that as a transgendered person you were able to afford your own surgeries. Not everyone is given that luxury. We do not all start on an equal footing in this world. You remind me of someone that used affirmative action to get ahead and now that they are ahead want to abolish affirmative action.
Bianca Lynne
@Clockwork: One would think that our doctors would love to have the surgeries paid for even more.
The thing is, this is about applying a government standard. The Canadian NHS has decided for quite some time that SRS is a medically needed procedure. As such, it should be covered. Alberta decided a few years ago to stop the coverage at the provincial level. This reverses the decision allowing all Canadian citizens equal access to medical care.
This isn’t about trans people wanting something for nothing or abdicating choices in life direction or whatever other nonsense you want to imply.
Subsidized or not, many trans people do kill themselves without access to medical care – including SRS. Thus, the coverage under Canada’s heath service. This, the reason Alberta’s decision to stop the coverage (and no other medical coverage BTW) was messed up and the recent decision to resume coverage is simple fairness.
Monique
This has nothing to do with lesbian, gay and bisexual people. Stop equating gay people with transsexuals who want to cut off their wangs and have taxpayers foot the bill.
Adam
I agree 1,00% Clockwork and Monique.
I have met some Trans people both FTM and MTF who told me how they personally do not want to transition because the SRS is not that advanced to actually give them the body, working genitals, or working reproductive system of a person of the opposite gender and SRS would not actually make them the opposite gender but merely a cisgender person imitating the opposite gender.
Clockwork
I just don’t think it is in the long term interest of the public image of transgenders in America to become known as a group that advocates for the medical costs of transition to be payed for by government funding.
Become known as group of people who are strong and have some ability to sustain yourself…
Private corporations in America can pay for whatever they choose…
You Canadians do what you like….
Jabaroo
@Clockwork: I get what you’re saying, but as a trans person wouldn’t you agree that some of the surgeries are necessary? If you can afford to pay for the surgeries, than I hope you would do so, but like I said before, some people just cannot afford them.
Clockwork
@Jabaroo:
>wouldn’t you agree that some of the surgeries are necessary?
People do fine with or without various aspects of transgender surgeries and procedures. I have not seen any difference in happiness from the amount of surgery a person has, every trans person comes to realize a point of contentment at a imperfect state.
>If you can afford to pay for the surgeries, than I hope you would do so,
>but like I said before, some people just cannot afford them
Too bad, there are many people who don’t like parts of their body. They don’t need the government to pay for it. Being trans is not that bigger of a physical deal than being chubby at 20, being a bald man at 30, being a woman with very small breasts at 25, or a middle age person with dark shadows under their eyes.
But given the current mindset of the trans activist community, they will push hard for government subsidized surgery and transition, transgenders will become known in America like the teacher on a $100,000 pension, the GSA people on a plane to Vegas, or the Pentagon contractor 200% over budget; a special interest that claims the country will suffer, the deserving go neglected without a financial contribution to do what is right;
but what really is a personal choice that many folks make everyday and pay for themselves in a free country.
Jabaroo
“People do fine with or without various aspects of transgender surgeries and procedures. I have not seen any difference in happiness from the amount of surgery a person has, every trans person comes to realize a point of contentment at a imperfect state.”
I don’t think it’s that black and white. Obviously what the men and the women have to go through is different, I’ve never met a trans-woman before, so I’m not really educated on what surgeries there are for them. I have a few ftm friends who have all had mastectomies, and to me (and them) that seems like a VERY necessary procedure that did have a great affect on their mental state.
dylan terreri, i
WHAT I LEARNED FROM CHASTITY BONO’S GENDER-REASSIGNMENT SURGERY
gender is reality. gender is as obvious an identifier as race is – changing one’s gender should be regarded as ludicrous an idea as changing one’s race (though michael jackson seemed to have done both). change your mind before you go to the extreme of changing your gender – it’s nothing but your mind that’s telling you that your body is a mistake. change your mind.
homosexuality is gender-dysfunction. this should be realized. a national tolerance of gender-dysfunction is telling children that it’s okay to be mediocre. it was the summer of 1991 – hunterdon county, new jersey – i was going to see “terminator 2” with someone named josh lane – we never saw it because i was expressing my awe of his manliness and he was telling me to love myself and not to see him as the best but to become the best. i thought he was being intolerant, so i felt rejected and wanted to go home. i’d always felt mediocre, a small masculine slight, i wanted someone to accept me for it. i don’t know if i’d have gone to a “gay pride” parade if i had the chance, but that’s neither here nor there.
now, whether her gender-curiosity is of the masculine gender or the feminine, if it’s being embraced by society that chastity bono got a sex change because she always thought that she had the wrong body, aren’t people admitting a gender-identity issue? it is an issue when one doesn’t feel like a female but is undeniably female. don’t people realize that such issues and feelings can only come into being once a person has been around other people long enough to have come to define themselves as a specific gender in relation to the world and genders around them? how do you know you have the wrong body if you haven’t been exposed to anything but your body? how do you know that there are two types of bodies? how do you come out of the womb with any information of the world when you’ve had no information to process while in the womb, as if a fetus is advanced enough to process information.
i was in high school and josh was the epitome of the word “man”. i arrived at that conclusion through all the years i had lived, all the years i had regarded athletes as “real men,” all the years i felt outcasted from the masculine gender. i had never wanted a sex change, but i sure did not feel like a “real man” and i did not feel comfortable calling myself a man when all these better men were around. i swam with my shirt on, i didn’t feel man enough to take it off. i thought that tank-tops didn’t belong on me because i was skinny and weak. this probably has nothing to do with any self-discontentment i felt, but i was an actor in high school – happy and comfortable to become someone else.
my lackluster sense of self complemented the lackluster specimen of manhood that i was, but maybe if i’d have gone to a “gay pride” parade then i would have been taught to be proud without having any justifiable reason to be proud of myself. if i learned how to love myself in spite of everything i wanted to change about myself, life would have been much easier and i wouldn’t have had to spend so much time lifting weights and improving myself.
there is a quote i came up with before 1996, i tested it in 1996 on stevanne lusk who was behind a place called “the center for neuro-rehab” in annapolis. evita was playing at the mall during the time i was in annapolis and i loved musical theatre, in case you have any doubts of my being a legitimate homosexual after writing a letter like this.
here’s the quote: “if you wanna believe there’s nothing detrimental to a masculine soul about finding security, fulfillment and something excitably taboo in another one, it’s your loss”
i was humping the mattress yet again this morning – do you know the stuff that is in gay porn? “men” sniffing their own armpits , “men” sniffing others’ armpits, “men” with their faces wedged inside ass-cracks, “men” with their hands up someone’s rear-end – when i see stuff like this i picture all these question marks flying around the heads of the curious little masculine slights that simply know themselves as “gay”.
“We shoulda known you question your manhood when we saw you jerking it like you just bought it at some curiosity shop,” from my first screenplay, andy’s beach, (c) 1996.
why don’t boys who were “born straight” come out of mama’s vagina with a hard-on? on second thought, why did they even come out of mama’s vagina – they’re soon going to be trying to re-enter a vagina with either their fingers, tongues or dicks. one would think that being inside of a vagina would be paradise for a boy who was “born straight”. on second thought, maybe newborn boys don’t know anything about the world around them and maybe it’ll take years to gain enough knowledge of the world (and the genders) around them to regard the vagina as special and interesting.
madonna’s “justify my love” was popular in late 1990, i remember it well – i was a junior in high school. paula abdul’s “opposites attract” was popular in early 1990, i remember it well – i was a sophomore. let me take a line from my aforementioned screenplay: ” i’m saying that opposites attract, be that man/woman, confident man/insecure man, or even half-the-woman/epitome of ‘woman’! ‘opposites’ is what you feel inside about yourself, it’s not strictly male or female on the outside! i’m jealous, therefore i lust! i’m jealous of your body like you’re jealous of saxy’s. i need a man in my life for the same reason you need a woman, i feel left out!”
i therefore can understand how chastity bono came to the conclusion that she felt like she should be a man. it’s cross-eyed gender-dysfunction. josh told me to change myself so that i’d love myself, he was talking about my becoming the best instead of fawning over supreme masculine images. i guess one could argue that going to a doctor to change one’s gender is the same as going to a gym to change one’s musculature, which brings to mind another line from my screenplay: “It works for you, huh, treating your gender like its presence on your body is some big mistake?”. gender is reality – gender is as obvious as race is – changing one’s gender should be regarded as ludicrous an idea as changing one’s race (though michael jackson seemed to have done both). change your mind before you go to the extreme of changing your gender, it’s nothing but your mind that’s telling you that your body is a mistake.
gender is self, gender is reality, the way anyone thinks or feels about themselves is arrived at by – let’s just say that i wouldn’t have felt like a masculine slight as a boy if i was not always picked last for teams in gym class. if girls were fawning over me rather than over athletes, i probably would have been a tad more self-confident. if i wasn’t only as strong as a girl, maybe i’d have had some masculine self-worth. maybe masculine self-worth is what josh was trying to give me when he told me to change myself to become the best. maybe masculine self-worth is why i enjoy gawking at images of “men” having sex as i’m humping my mattress, when the reality of having sex with anything but a masculine image keeps me from having sex with men.
maybe the absence of self-respect and masculine self-worth that i felt as a boy would have done more than bring about a lust for men. maybe it would have led me to believe that i was not supposed to be male, that i was a female trapped in a male’s body. let me conclude by saying that before there is gender-reassignment surgery in anyone’s life, before anyone wants to do away with their gender, there is a certain degree of self-hatred. change your mind.
dylan terreri, i
http://www.jaggedlittledyl.com, LLC
“When I’m hungry, I eat. When I’m thirsty, I drink. When I feel like saying something, I say it.” – Madonna