Originally posted at Eleventh-Avenue-South.com. Archived as part of The Column’s archive project.
Along with medications for sexual dysfunction, and circumcision, Minnesota will stop paying for sex-change operations (not really the most accurate term, but that’s what the Strib and the State use).
Minnesota has tried to end Medicaid payments for sex-change operations for 10 years. But activists have challenged the restrictions in court. As a result, two to three people a year have had their sex-change operations paid for by state programs, at a total cost of about $15,000 in state funds, officials say. The new law, which took effect Aug. 1, “completely closes the loophole,” Geroux said.
State lawyers say they expect court challenges to continue. Phil Duran, a lawyer for OutFront Minnesota, an advocacy group, says he’s appealing the department’s denials to five patients awaiting sex-change surgery. “It’s certainly our position that this is not about saving money,” he said. “This is about imposing a [penalty] on politically unpopular people.”
This is an issue that is very complicated, and I support what the National Transgender Advocacy Coalition has to say:
“The Right To Make One’s Body Congruent With Gender Role
Given that each individual has the right to assume gender roles, it then follows that each individual has the right to change their body or alter its physiology so it better fits a gender role. These changes may be cosmetically, chemically or surgically induced, provided these changes are supervised by an appropriate licensed professional and the individual accepts sole responsibility for their actions in this regard.
Therefore, no person shall be denied their Human and/or Civil Rights on the basis that they changed or wish to change their body, cosmetically, chemically, surgically or any combination of these, to better fit a gender role.”
I think I’m against what Minnesota has decided. Although I’m still not sure. I don’t know enough about the issue to determine for myself whether it is medically necessary, but my gut says it is. I’d love to hear people’s comments one way or the other: Should MInnesota pay for low-income citizens seeking to alter the gender of their bodies?