Sunday, September 09, 2012

According To Medical Experts, SRS Is Medically Necessary

I got into this Facebook debate two days ago with a friend of mine who is a nurse and complained about how senior citizens are treated by the US healthcare system.  

I was in agreement with her on the funding issue until she used the Kosilek case as an example in her mind of 'wasteful taxpayer spending' and compounded it by saying that SRS was medically unnecessary surgery.  

Um, flag on the play.   Did I call her on it?  You betcha.  And when I saw the same BS in a Clutch magazine article and transphobia creeping into the comment sections, called them out, too.

According to the American Medical Association, American Psychiatric Association, World Professional Organization for Transgender Health, several professional organizations in the fields of medicine, mental health and social work and surprise, surprise insurance companies such as Aetna,  hormone replacement therapy and sex reassignment surgery are medically necessary

The decision in terms of whether we need SRS or not is up to the individual transperson, and in some cases our medical histories will dictate whether we can have it or not, but medical people who treat gender identity issues are increasingly coming to the consensus opinion that gender reassignment surgery is not a frivolous or cosmetic procedure, but a medically necessary one..


3 comments:

  1. As always you are on point. This whole case has really brought out the hidden hate from 'allies' on trans people and their health care.

    Minor thing: I like the term "Genital Reassignment Surgery" better than "Gender Reassignment Surgery". Feels like it describes the situation much better, since gender is not something you can perform surgery on. Also, still same letters for acronym!

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  2. Medical Expert should be expert in their field. It discuss about them. thanks for this blog.

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  3. How about 'Genital Revision Surgery'? I don't mean to minimize significance of certain procedures, but reinforce it while also removing some of the gendering and thus sexing connotations of the current common language used.

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