Berkeley set to offer sex-change employee benefit

[The Northerner]

While other cities are slashing employee benefits, Berkeley is slated to add one more: paying for sex-change operations.

The City Council is poised to vote tonight to set aside $20,000 annually for city workers' gender-reassignment surgery. The procedure is not covered by the city's two health insurance providers, Kaiser and Health Net.

"We offer all kinds of benefits to our employees. This brings our benefits in line with what's just and fair for the transgender community," said City Councilman Darryl Moore, who originally proposed the idea in 2007.

The benefit would allow employees to collect the money before the operation. To receive the payout, employees would have to have lived as the opposite sex for at least one year and undergone hormone therapy. They also would have to have worked for the city at least a year.

Read more: http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2011/01/17/BA1P1HA3JL.DTL#ixzz1BPjFfY1J

[enlightenment]

1. About time.

Sexual reassignment surgery is not an 'elective'. There are physical risks associated with taking hormones while reproductive organs are in place (for example, it's dangerous to take higher levels of testosterone while still toting around uterus and ovaries, both of which produce some level of female sex hormone. It increases the risk of developing cancer).

Currently, the cost of a hysterectomy and oophorectomy can run well over $30,000 and since most insurance does not cover it for sexual reassignment, many FtM's cannot afford it. It is a risk they shouldn't have to take just because people think it's all about 'playing dress-up'.

Glad to hear that Berkeley has more enlightened people on its City Council.

[Lance_Boyle]

3. It is completely elective, as is the decision to take hormones.

If the body is functioning with the current hardware, altering that hardware is *elective* surgery.

[enlightenment]

4. Abe Lincoln said something once that might apply to

comments like yours:

"Better to remain silent and be thought a fool than to speak out and remove all doubt".

[Lance_Boyle]

5. You are entitled to your opinion, of course.

But medically, if there is no need for a surgery (i.e., the body functions as-is without having to be cut up) then the surgery is elective. This does not take into account psychological issues that may plague a person, but is absolutely correct WRT elective v non-elective surgery.

Question for you, since you seem to think you know all about this - what about people with Body Integrity Identity Disorder? They are often forced to self-amputate the limbs they feel are "not their own." Should insurance cover elective amputations for these people? If not, what makes suffering BIID different from being no-op transgendered? I'll eagerly await your well-thought-out response, Mrs. Lincoln.

[enlightenment]

6. As you are entitled to yours, Mr. Boyle.

I do think (again, my opinion) that you should refrain from assumptions - in this case, assuming that I think I 'know all about this' - without proof thereof. I certainly never suggested that I did . . . although I will venture to guess that I probably do know more about this particular issue than you.

Your reply to my post was a purely self-referential statement; you offered nothing to back it up in any way, shape or form. Your comment didn't deserve any more than my reply.

This time you are attempting to compare conditions that are not identical, beyond the fact that they are both referenced as psychological disorders.

No, I do not believe that insurance should cover elective amputations for individuals with BIID; neither do I believe that what is called GID is a psychological disorder. I'm not alone in that - both the UK and France recognize that GID is not a mental illness.

"Elective" is an amorphous word in regard to gender reassignment surgery. Consider this: as a male (I presume that is your gender), what if you were told by a physician that you have a very high risk of developing cancer unless your left arm was removed? The doctor is not telling you will absolutely develop cancer; just that you have a very increased risk. You decide that the risk is something you don't want to take and you have the arm removed. What if your insurance company informed you that they would not cover the cost of the surgery, because it was based on a possibility, not an actuality - so it's elective.

Is it really elective? Your life may very well be at stake if you don't have the surgery. It's not a nose job; it's not cosmetic; it's not 'elective' as far as you're concerned.

That's what I meant. For transgender individuals, sexual reassignment surgery is not 'elective'. It is necessary, for their health - both physical and mental.

[Lance_Boyle]

7. Elective gender reassignment surgery is not necessary for physical health.

That's what makes it elective. Not sure why this elective surgery should be covered when a similarly elective procedure to "cure" one's BIID should not be...

[enlightenment]

8. You are deliberately missing my point, I believe.

The point is that transexualism is not a brain dysfunction. BIID is - because areas of their brains aren't working correctly.
http://www.newscientist.com/article/dn16840-desire-to-amputate-healthy-limbs-shows-up-in-brain-scans.html

Whether or not you want to argue if BIID is psychological or neurological or both is irrelevant to the original discussion, however. It seems that the only people who are arguing that BIID is another form of 'normal' are people with BIID . . . I believe if you did just a little bit of research, you would find that GID is not in the same category at all.

GID isn't BIID and it isn't a brain dysfunction, so a transgendered person's desire/need to have a surgical procedure that falls under the heading of 'gender reassignment' is no more elective than the need of a natal male's or natal female's for similar procedures.

If an insurance company will pay to remove a natal woman's breasts and/or internal genitalia because she is at increased risk of developing cancer, then they should also pay to remove those parts in an FtM male, because they are also at increased risk - it is no more 'elective' for the FtM than for the natal woman.

If an insurance company will pay for breast reconstruction/augmentation for a natal woman who had a physical malformation or lost a breast or breast tissue to disease - in other words, for some reason other than purely cosmetic - than they should pay for a similar procedure for an MtF, because it is medically necessary as part of their transition.

If you want to argue from the insurance companies' perspective of what is 'medically necessary', then of course all of it is elective - as far as they're concerned. Hell, almost any medical procedure is considered 'elective' by the insurance companies these days.

[AngryAmish]

2. Is the reassignment surgery mandatory?