Sex Change Operations CAN be Covered by Medicare

[nehalem256]

If SRS helps them, then we as a society should help with that. Besides, there are bigger issues to fight over. And by the logic presented in this thread by many people, Medicare/Medicaid should not pay to treat people who have diseases from smoking. But we do. And that's a massively larger group than people with gender issues. So if you want to make the argument that "if people choose to change genders, that's fine as long as I don't pay for it" then how can you hold the position that "a person who chose to smoke all their life and now has lung cancer I want to pay for their treatment"? It's ok for you to pay for one group who made an active choice to smoke their whole life (many who knew the risks), but not ok to pay for somebody who was born with the psyche of one gender and a body of the other to get their body to match their psyche?

You appear to be confused. You don't change genders. Sex and gender are different things. Gender is totally about psyche. Sex is about your body. So you can't have a female gendered body.

It seems like you are falling into the terminology trap I outlined earlier. The issue is that gender and sex are now different things, but we still use the same male/female terms to refer to both sex and gender.

Saying that you are female gendered, but male sexed sounds like a problem. But if instead you were pink gendered and male sexed this does not sound like a problem.

 

[irishScott]

Please point to all the lobbying done. I won't go so far as to say there is not lobbying, but the "lobbying" being done is next to nothing compared to what lobbying goes on in Washington. Look at Comcast and net neutrality among others. There might be a few hundred thousand a year spent for transgender issues, but orders of magnitude more spent on just about anything else.

At one time being gay was also considered a "psychological disorder." And to many it still is viewed as one. That doesn't mean it actually is a "disorder." Biological sex and gender identity are not the same thing, and cause major issues for people who have a mis-match between them. Transgendered individuals have some of the highest suicide rates out there (http://articles.latimes.com/2014/ja...uicide-attempts-alarming-transgender-20140127).

That logic goes both ways. Just because one sex-related behavior is no longer considered a disorder does not mean that another sex-related behavior should be treated the same. We don't have the answers, and I side against letting people mutilate themselves until we do.

If SRS helps them, then we as a society should help with that. Besides, there are bigger issues to fight over. And by the logic presented in this thread by many people, Medicare/Medicaid should not pay to treat people who have diseases from smoking. But we do. And that's a massively larger group than people with gender issues. So if you want to make the argument that "if people choose to change genders, that's fine as long as I don't pay for it" then how can you hold the position that "a person who chose to smoke all their life and now has lung cancer I want to pay for their treatment"? It's ok for you to pay for one group who made an active choice to smoke their whole life (many who knew the risks), but not ok to pay for somebody who was born with the psyche of one gender and a body of the other to get their body to match their psyche?

But we don't know if it objectively "helps" them. We know it reinforces their presumed gender identity. We also know that reinforcing a delusional person's delusions tends to strengthen said delusions. Now the supporters of transgenderism and SRS are likely feeling a twinge of offense at that last sentence, which brings me to another point. SRS is a big deal. You're not just getting a boob or nose job, you're fundamentally altering your biochemistry and actively destroying and/or mutilating your reproductive organs. Such decisions should not be tacitly supported or allowed to proceed without a good, concrete reason. It seems that many supporters of transgenderism do so out of an emotional desire for a warm fuzzy rather than a basis of hard evidence.

I agree we have much, MUCH bigger fish to fry, and I'm certainly not writing my congressman over this or anything; but that doesn't make this right.

And no I'm not some Conservative nutjob who thinks this'll lead to the downfall of society and everyone will start being transsexual and all that bullshit. I'm just concerned that 10 or 20 years down the line we discover that we not only allowed but supported mentally ill people in their attempts at self mutilation. I'd prefer a little more caution and a little less "oh yay an opportunity to look avant-garde, numb someone's psychological pain and puff myself up as a distant relative of Jesus!"

 

[nehalem256]

Maybe transgender individuals need to take a page from the fat-acceptance activists and learn to accept their bodies?

 

[kinev]

Please point to all the lobbying done. I won't go so far as to say there is not lobbying, but the "lobbying" being done is next to nothing compared to what lobbying goes on in Washington. Look at Comcast and net neutrality among others. There might be a few hundred thousand a year spent for transgender issues, but orders of magnitude more spent on just about anything else.

At one time being gay was also considered a "psychological disorder." And to many it still is viewed as one. That doesn't mean it actually is a "disorder." Biological sex and gender identity are not the same thing, and cause major issues for people who have a mis-match between them. Transgendered individuals have some of the highest suicide rates out there (http://articles.latimes.com/2014/ja...uicide-attempts-alarming-transgender-20140127).

If SRS helps them, then we as a society should help with that. Besides, there are bigger issues to fight over. And by the logic presented in this thread by many people, Medicare/Medicaid should not pay to treat people who have diseases from smoking. But we do. And that's a massively larger group than people with gender issues. So if you want to make the argument that "if people choose to change genders, that's fine as long as I don't pay for it" then how can you hold the position that "a person who chose to smoke all their life and now has lung cancer I want to pay for their treatment"? It's ok for you to pay for one group who made an active choice to smoke their whole life (many who knew the risks), but not ok to pay for somebody who was born with the psyche of one gender and a body of the other to get their body to match their psyche?



You can hold your personal views, and I fully support you holding whatever views you want. However when your views harms others I take issue.

The T part is kind of the odd one out in LGBT. The LG part has made a lot of strides in getting equality, although still not there in the US. The B part gets ostracized from the LG and heterosexual communities (many people don't see how a person could be attracted to both sexes). The T part is the one that really is lacking in progress. They have made some progress, but nothing like the LG side of it has. And they, like bisexuals, get ostracized from both LG and hetero communities.



:thumbsup:x1000.

Maybe "lobbying" was too loaded of a word. I guess I read:

"Jennifer Levi, a lawyer who directs the Transgender Rights Project of Gay & Lesbian Advocates and Defenders in Boston"

and "Transgender health advocates"

and took "lobbying" from that. Advocates probably would be a better term given the negative connotation associated with lobbying (SEE COMCAST).

I would be for some smoking/obesity related diseases not being covered/covered less by Medicare/Medicaid (personal responsibility). But, we're too far down the rabbit hole for that to happen at this point in time. So, I suppose, I'm against expanding what we have to pay for as taxpayers. The reason this caught my attention is because it still is an elective surgery (even if it helps them feel better about themselves).

I think we both agree that society should help out those who are suffering. I think we should do it privately and have a choice and you think it should be done by the government and be mandatory through taxes (not to put words in your mouth, though, so if that's wrong, I apologize). You claim that I am harming others (specifically the people with gender dyphoria) by not supporting having tax payer money go towards elective surgery. I claim that you are harming others (me, current taxpayers, and future generations) by supporting having tax payer money go towards elective surgery.

Yes, it would be a miniscule drop in the bucket compared to total government spending, but that doesn't make it ok. A few hundred million here and there adds up.