Alberta SRS Coverage. In Other News, Most People Still Suck.

(S)

Arguably the most pressing issue facing trans people in Canada, is legal recognition. The kind of recognition that lets people put what they feel is the most correct gender identifier on all of their identification. Furthermore, the sort of recognition that acknowledges the things a trans person needs to lead a happy existence. This includes things like protection from wrongful termination, access to services like shelters, but perhaps most importantly, access to necessary medical services, such as any surgeries, hormones, or therapy required.

The Province of Alberta recently passed legislation that reintroduces coverage for bottom surgery (aka. GRS or SRS) for trans people. This sort of coverage is crucial because said surgery is often a prerequisite for full gender identity recognition under the law. This too from a province with 78 our 87 legislative seats filled with centre-right or full-blown right wing politicians. One journalist suggested Alberta's premiere is attempting to ride a recent wave of support, cause by an opposition member's political gaffe, even further.

It's worth noting that the support came in reaction to a member of Alberta's other right wing party (the Wildrose party, marketed as the further right alternative to your regular old Alberta Conservatives—Alberta politics are depressing) saying something idiotic. Nothing terribly imaginative; just the usual fundie tune of "hellfire and brimstone for teh gays," which wouldn't have surprised anyone, except for the fact he's a politician. A fact that elicited a not insignificant amount of facedesking, by any nearby person with even a modicum of sense (including Wildrose's leader). But I digress.

Alberta previously covered bottom surgery, but stopped in a 2009 bout of typical conservative budget cuts. "Hmm, what are some of the smaller minority groups that we can afford to piss off?" they likely asked one another. Well, the coverage has been reinstated, and apparently even expanded (the program allowing for 25 surgery candidates per year, as opposed to 20, prior to 2009).

But this all sounds fine, doesn't it? So what am I bitching about then? What I am kvetching about, dear reader, is the public perception of the coverage. The comments were a nightmare, with the usual "downfall of society/confusing the children/will we soon have to pay for peter's man-to-lamp surgery?" rubbish, as well as a local CTV poll that asked a bunch of ignoramuses to quantify their outrage over something that will have close to zero effect on their lives. But worse than any of that was the tone of the journalism, the actual coverage itself. The piece in question read like one long, exasperated sigh, escaping the lips of a disillusioned political spinster. A sort of this-is-what-you-assholes-voted-for-I-know-it's-crazy-but-deal-with-it motif.

Using up your precious tax dollars since 2003 (source)

So let's just get this out in the open: if bottom surgery is right for a trans person, it's not an elective--a view shared by the Canadian Human Rights Commission (see section 188). Insofar as Gender Dysphoria is considered a valid condition, like schizophrenia or depression, it deserves to be covered under Canada's healthcare system, like schizophrenia or depression. Of course, surgery isn't right for everyone (there are lot's of non-op folks out there), but if it is, then it might be the only effective avenue for treatment. A trans person cannot be talked out of their gender identity, nor are they ever "just going to accept their body as it is." No sane individual would deny a person with bipolar disorder the treatment that would alleviate their symptoms, so why should gender dysphoria be approached any differently? Furthermore, no one would ever call a person with bipolar disorder "a drain on the healthcare system."

Which brings me to my next point of contention: "if it's not deemed medically necessary because you can't survive without it...I don't think that I should be paying for any surgery like this out of my tax dollars."

This is problematic for several reasons. First of all, to declare GD a non-issue because it isn't life threatening is stupid; 'life-threatening' is an arbitrary delineation. No one literally dies from depression, so I suppose that any associated medication or therapy is elective then. That doesn't sound right, does it? Well that's analogous to what you're saying when you call any GD treatment 'elective'. Of course depression and GD don't literally kill people; people who suffer from those conditions do that themselves...

Secondly, where else would you rather those tax dollars go? To cover medical expenses accrued by lifetime smokers? How about to fix the stress-cause ulcers and/or faulty heart valves of stock-brokers? These are choices, gender identity is not. For Albertans, the tax cost of a GRS coverage program is around $700 000 annually. To cover smoking related illness? "About $1.8 billion, including $470.6 million in direct health-care costs."

Yeah, whatever lady (source).

Wildrose leader Danielle Smith griped about the costs and necessity of the surgeries as well: "I think it's clearly elective surgery," she uttered, grasping the point almost as well as a brick floats. "I think that when people look at the kind of procedures that aren't covered by the system, they sort of scratch their heads and say why would this be a higher priority than some of those other things?" she added. This is almost precisely the argument used by opponents of the Occupy movement, or the student protesters in Montreal: "quit griping about your first world problems; don't you know that children are starving in Darfur?!" Yes, the children do need help. However, humans are capable of multitasking, and we do not need to go through a laundry list of the world's problems, fully solving each one, in order of severity, one at a time.

...literally stealing these from people with diabetes (source)

This is not a zero sum game. Granting tax dollars to a GRS coverage program does not use funds that would have otherwise been allocated to pay for new insulin pumps. If you are angry that something medically necessary is not covered under the current healthcare system, the answer is to lobby for that coverage, not block someone else from obtaining something they require.

Furthermore, do not try to use cost or medical necessity as a smoke screen, when what you really want to say is that you think it is weird or unnecessary. No one will ever fully comprehend everything, nor will they require every service the healthcare system provides, but people cannot draw a neat little line around what they do and say "alright, everything in here, I'm okay with paying for. Everything else? Get your hands out of my pockets."