Aureantes ([info]aureantes) wrote in [info]transgender,
@ 2009-11-05 03:17:00
Previous Entry  Add to memories!  Tell a Friend  Next Entry
Entry tags:legal issues, politics

Annoying/infuriating news re healthcare reform (USA).....
Just in via headline-sampler in my Yahell Mail...

Conservatives shop sex ops ban to GOP

The federal government would be banned from funding sex change operations and other services for transgender individuals if social conservative activists get their way.

 There’s no sponsor yet for an amendment to the health care overhaul – and it may remain in the dustbin of unrealized wedge issues – but culture warriors are shopping the proposal to Republican senators.  (Full article at Politico.com)


Obviously, it can't just be assumed that healthcare reform is going to be automatically inclusive of everyone who's heretofore been marginalized by the system -- political/rhetorical pressure needs to be applied by us, because it's imminently being applied against us, on the same "social values" grounds as the pressure already being exerted to ban any governmental funding of abortions via public healthcare option (I recall the topic coming up earlier here, but it wasn't necessarily seen as related to trans issues then, even though they are naturally lumped together by social conservatives).   Politicians need a good kick in the arse from their trans constituents and everyone else who cares about actual social equality, before this evasion has any chance to get slipped in and undermine any real healthcare reform. 
 


(22 comments) - (Post a new comment)


[info]buruna_enu
2009-11-05 02:14 pm UTC (link)
What? Abortion not a trans-issue?

I kind of thought both were subsidiaries of the "right to do with your body as you will it" issue, which has clearly been on debate as kicking it back to biblical times, in previous contexts to our political clime, such as religion. (Like, very broadly, many Patrist religions would say that getting an abortion or a sex change is something you have no right to do, and many Matrist neo-trads would say just the opposite: you've been given a body, its your divine right to do with it as you will. Just very generally.)

Anyway, I found abortion to be a terribly trans related interest when I, and intersexed m2f, once got my f2m partner pregnant. Er... pregnant tranny issue, I suppose.

May I ask, oh kindly poster of this post, just what measures are underway to do what you propose that a non-activist such as myself might be able to put a "vote" behind?

SRS is already not covered to my knowledge, but I just found out that the injectable estrogen that makes my life possible (seriously, I nearly killed myself because I couldn't get it, and going back off sounds worse than death for me,) may no longer be payed for by my insurance, which is Medicare (with Washington State benefits,) as I am disabled.

I'm all sorts of vulnerable here, what exactly can we do?

(Reply to this) (Thread)

[info]fall_of_sophia
2009-11-05 02:48 pm UTC (link)
Yeah, it's not just a trans issue because it's lumped together by social conservatives. Trans issues and reproductive rights issues are bodily autonomy issues and inexorably linked to social justice.

(Reply to this) (Parent)(Thread)

[info]buruna_enu
2009-11-05 03:04 pm UTC (link)
Ha!

That's what I'm saying. I've often wondered why trans liberation and abortion rights movements do not seem to intersect more than they do, as this is all about the right to use our bodies as we see fit.

But then, I'm not an activist, and do not make such decisions for the movement.

*shrug*

(Reply to this) (Parent)(Thread)

[info]fall_of_sophia
2009-11-05 03:05 pm UTC (link)
because single-issue movements are shit, basically.

(Reply to this) (Parent)(Thread)

[info]buruna_enu
2009-11-05 06:34 pm UTC (link)
I don't know that I quite fully agree.

However, I feel that there are a lot of places where people who don't work together should, within organized activism, and well, everything.

(Reply to this) (Parent)

[info]justsomedyke
2009-11-05 08:24 pm UTC (link)
Everything will be perfect if we can just stop the war.

(Reply to this) (Parent)

[info]tinamou
2009-11-05 05:36 pm UTC (link)
Ugh, I had a feeling that was going to happen. Honestly, I feel like the best we can expect out of the US Congress is for the bill to ignore trans coverage altogether, but include some kind of broad language that plans (that will qualify for tax breaks, or be considered as meeting the federal mandate, or whatever) have to cover 'medically necessary' treatment, and that sometime after that lawsuits and insurance appeals will establish that transition costs are medically necessary expenses.

(Reply to this) (Thread)

[info]buruna_enu
2009-11-05 06:43 pm UTC (link)
My, but that would rock.

(Reply to this) (Parent)(Thread)

[info]snugglebitch
2009-11-05 07:37 pm UTC (link)
No it won't, because transition-related expenses will continue to destroy trans people financially (HRT ALONE cost a quarter of my take-home pay with my last job, and that was when I was lucky enough TO HAVE A JOB), mentally, emotionally, and physically. Most trans people will not have the money to pursue those lawsuits to make that change happen. Expecting us to change the system through financial means doesn't, doesn't rock, because as a community we do NOT have the capital to make it happen.

(Reply to this) (Parent)(Thread)

[info]terry_terrible
2009-11-05 07:45 pm UTC (link)
Track This
No it won't, because transition-related expenses will continue to destroy trans people financially (HRT ALONE cost a quarter of my take-home pay with my last job, and that was when I was lucky enough TO HAVE A JOB), mentally, emotionally, and physically. Most trans people will not have the money to pursue those lawsuits to make that change happen. Expecting us to change the system through financial means doesn't, doesn't rock, because as a community we do NOT have the capital to make it happen.

Word on that. Unfortunately I don't think we have the political/financial capital fight this even if we had some political coordination. Democrats will drop us like a hot potato faster than they do with marriage equality (they've already cave on abortion in the HCR bill also). And what little resources we have are going towards ENDA

I have a feeling that over-all we are fucked for the time being :(

(Reply to this) (Parent)

[info]buruna_enu
2009-11-05 09:31 pm UTC (link)
Um, I really don't believe I was in favor of taking away our insurance coverage.

How did you get that? I couldn't even transition (and would have definitely killed myself,) if I hadn't been able to get my hormones payed for via insurance.

I was saying the possible scenario in which we gain from this gambit would rock.

(sheesh.)

(Reply to this) (Parent)(Thread)

[info]snugglebitch
2009-11-05 09:38 pm UTC (link)
My point was that, while you're right in that the ultimate end result would rock, the method of getting there would not, because the method of getting there would take decades if it ever worked at all. Trans people as a population do not have the means of making that method come to fruition, because it (using the courts) is a method that requires a great deal of time and upfront cost and more time which incurs more cost, all of which we don't have.

There's a reason we've heard of maybe three trans-related lawsuits worldwide in the past couple years. It's not because trans people don't want to fight, it's because we (especially those of us who most need something like universal health care) lack the means to do so in that arena.

(Reply to this) (Parent)(Thread)

[info]buruna_enu
2009-11-05 09:42 pm UTC (link)
Okay. I understand my own oppression, thank you for the data about the court cases, that was new to me. But I know we're broke (fleeced.)

I'm just seeking a positive take. Are you saying this is a no win situation? Because I feel that's kind of duh, I was focusing on how one result was better than another.

The means suck anyway, we're under suffrage.

I just chose to not let anger tear me, and make the world like trannies more, by being likable. I'm kind of cultural PR, I'm a trans woman in the arts and perhaps going into fashion.

Hmmm... Its sort of a pipe dream, but I'd love to be the sort of person who could fund such cases one day...

(Reply to this) (Parent)(Thread)

[info]snugglebitch
2009-11-05 09:49 pm UTC (link)
I'm not saying it's a no-win situation. For those of us who can do it, there's still education and lobbying, there's still protesting, there's still civil disobedience, there's still all manner of tactics that we can (and some of us go) make use of. But at the moment, at least in the US, it's all EXTREMELY grassroots, all EXTREMELY local, and even that is often difficult to organize. There is no national movement for trans equality (let alone trans liberation).

Despite what it sounds like, I am an optimist (I couldn't do the things I've done without it). I just don't think this tactic is sound, because it is an expensive tactic, and we are a community that's struggling just to put food on the table.

(Reply to this) (Parent)(Thread)

[info]buruna_enu
2009-11-06 03:16 am UTC (link)
K.

(Reply to this) (Parent)

[info]valyen
2009-11-05 08:37 pm UTC (link)
Yeah, let's continue spending billions funding illegals, those who don't really qualify, and give food stamps to the rich. But help those with their mental health and assist with SRS and the path leading to it *gasp!* never! that's only what normal countries do! *Snorts* quite frankly that article boils my blood, only in America do people go that far out of their way to ensure misery to those they don't like while not caring what is really wrong with the system. I swear if one more person with a BMW comes up to my pharmacy on medicaid again I'm going to puke on them.

(Replies frozen)(Thread)

[info]snugglebitch
2009-11-05 09:33 pm UTC (link)
... funding illegals...

There is no such thing as an illegal human being.

(Replies frozen)(Parent)(Thread)

[info]montrealais
2009-11-05 09:40 pm UTC (link)
¡Ningún ser humano es ilegal! I first encountered that slogan in 1997 and it keeps being true...

(Replies frozen)(Parent)
MOD WARNING:
[info]lisaquestions
2009-11-05 10:07 pm UTC (link)
Referring to human beings as illegals is racist. Find another way to make your point.

(Replies frozen)(Parent)
Cont'd
[info]lisaquestions
2009-11-05 10:39 pm UTC (link)
Further, the ablism in the comment about people with BMWs on medicaid isn't acceptable.

It is possible to criticize the unwillingness to help trans people without attacking people for their race, citizenship, or disability.

(Replies frozen)(Parent)

[info]iphisol
2009-11-06 07:00 pm UTC (link)
Wait, the federal government covers bottom surgery and other transition-related expenses? Is that real?

(Reply to this) (Thread)

[info]noble_roman
2009-11-07 10:45 pm UTC (link)
In a few states Medicaid will fund bottom surgery, but usually only after a very long appeals process.

(Reply to this) (Parent)

(22 comments) - (Post a new comment)

Create an Account
Forgot your login or password?
Login w/ OpenID
English • Español • Deutsch • Русский…