Now that the American Psychiatric Association (APA) has advocated for real help for transpeople who want to transition than simply moralizing about the mental state of a transperson, and supporting changes in health insurance policies to cover the treatment of a transition, namely therapy, drugs and most importantly sex reassignment surgery (SRS), how long will before the insurance companies remove the exclusion for the treatment and include the treatment in the policies?
The Obama administration advocated for similar measures for the Federal Employee Health Benefit Plan (FEHB) to cover the treatment in 2010, and federal employees and retirees in transition or wanting to transition are still waiting for the changes in the rules issued by the Office of Personnel Management (OPM) and then compliance in the policies by the companies with the FEHB rules.
And we expect a better or faster response from the private market insurance companies? We know many employers have included the cost of treatment in their policies either directly with the employer or as a rider to the policies available to the employees. But that was only because the employers demanded and implemented it, not the companies.
And even then they still have to change the surgeons, none of whom accept insurance to cover the SRS. You always pay full up front and file a claim if you have the coverage. Only some countries outside the US cover transition care with SRS as part of their patient care.
To borrow from Ambrosia, "How Long (Has This Been Going On)?" How long before the health insurance pamphlet you get doesn't include the language, "Sex transformation treatment excluded" but includes the language "all medically prescribed sex transformation treatment and surgeries covered"?
Wednesday, August 22, 2012
Tuesday, August 21, 2012
Finally
Finally the APA, which has long determined that people who wanted to transition between genders had a "mental disorder" and not a physical one as long been the common sense diagnosis, has decided to advocate for health insurance companies and health care providers to cover medically prescribed and necessary treatments and costs for Gender Idendity Disorder, now termed Gender Dysphoria. Gee, what took them so long?
NEWS RELEASE:
APA Issues Official Positions Supporting Access to Care and the Rights of Transgender and Gender Variant Persons
August 16, 2012 | Release No. 12-36
Staff, The American Psychological Association
News Release
Access to Care for Transgender and Gender Variant Individuals
The American Psychiatric Association:
Recognizes that appropriately evaluated transgender and gender variant individuals can benefit greatly from medical and surgical gender transition treatments.
Advocates for removal of barriers to care and supports both public and private health insurance coverage for gender transition treatment.
Opposes categorical exclusions of coverage for such medically necessary treatment when prescribed by a physician.
Discrimination against Transgender and Gender Variant Individuals
The American Psychiatric Association:
Supports laws that protect the civil rights of transgender and gender variant individuals.
Urges the repeal of laws and policies that discriminate against transgender and gender variant people.
Opposes all public and private discrimination against transgender and gender variant individuals in such areas as health care, employment, housing, public accommodation, education, and licensing.
Declares that no burden of proof of such judgment, capacity, or reliability shall be placed upon these individuals greater than that imposed on any other persons.
I'll give them an A for finally coming out for something they call a disorder but not for their timliness, but then now is better than never.
NEWS RELEASE:
APA Issues Official Positions Supporting Access to Care and the Rights of Transgender and Gender Variant Persons
August 16, 2012 | Release No. 12-36
Staff, The American Psychological Association
News Release
Access to Care for Transgender and Gender Variant Individuals
The American Psychiatric Association:
Recognizes that appropriately evaluated transgender and gender variant individuals can benefit greatly from medical and surgical gender transition treatments.
Advocates for removal of barriers to care and supports both public and private health insurance coverage for gender transition treatment.
Opposes categorical exclusions of coverage for such medically necessary treatment when prescribed by a physician.
Discrimination against Transgender and Gender Variant Individuals
The American Psychiatric Association:
Supports laws that protect the civil rights of transgender and gender variant individuals.
Urges the repeal of laws and policies that discriminate against transgender and gender variant people.
Opposes all public and private discrimination against transgender and gender variant individuals in such areas as health care, employment, housing, public accommodation, education, and licensing.
Declares that no burden of proof of such judgment, capacity, or reliability shall be placed upon these individuals greater than that imposed on any other persons.
I'll give them an A for finally coming out for something they call a disorder but not for their timliness, but then now is better than never.
Sunday, August 19, 2012
I Like This
I don't know anything about this person, but I like this entry on their blog about drag performance by the gay culture (since most drag performers are gay).
Addressing Misogyny In Drag
"Drag performance originates from Western cis gay male subculture and is an overt expression of contempt for women in general and trans* women in particular. In both means and motive, it is a close parallel to the blackface and yellowface performances which were once a common element in minstrel shows: members of a privileged group dress up as members of an oppressed group and play out their own bigoted stereotypes about that group for the amusement of people who share that bigotry. Drag performance is a public playground for the rampant sexism and cissexism of the gay male community, gleefully reiterating and reinforcing every sort of prejudice against women.
Like the cis gay male subculture which spawned it, drag culture is especially contemptuous of trans women. This is illustrated by the way prominent drag queens such as RuPaul and Sharon Needles go out of their way to use their positions as popular media figures to spread dangerous misinformation about trans* people, to encourage the use of transmisogynistic slurs such as “t**nny”, and even to attack those who are respectful towards trans people. Drag queens are so rabidly transmisogynistic that they can’t stand it when others aren’t transmisogynistic.
To be crystal clear, this criticism does not extend to cross-dressing as an expression of nonbinary, genderqueer, and/or genderfluid identities or even cross-dressing as a sexual fetish. It is specifically about drag, as in public showbiz performances built around grossly exaggerated, exhibitionistic cross-dressing as an grotesque parody of women and/or trans women.
Drag is not fabulous. Drag is fucking offensive to all women, and especially to trans women."
On the Mellissa Harris-Perry Show (MSNBC) Ms. Perry talked about the LGBT community and had RuPaul on to talk about drag as an LGBT issue when it's not, never has been and never will be. Drag is not transgender. It's drag and nothing else. As she notes, it's not about the person in normal life, but the drag performance, which is often mistaken as representative of transwomen.
It's the same to me for cross-dressers, the straight (heterosexual) men, usually married and often with a family, who play dressup, becoming "women" when it's just men in dresses living out an innocuous hobby or fetish, but often is also mistaken as representative of transwomen.
They're men, like gay men, just men, and not transgender, which is my argument they don't deserve status as transgender for their public presentation as women. I would argue they deserve some rights but not the same to call themselves transgender. They don't need therapy. They don't need medical intervention to transition.
They don't live as women 24/7 for some public acceptance test. They don't want surgery to change their body. They don't face the lifetime risk of being discovered as not being born female. They don't understand the deep, personal frustrations transwomen face their entire life, being in a wrong body and then after transition, being discovered and exposed for that wrong body.
To me, they're just another flavor of drag, just a personal level and not for performance. They want the fun of pretending to be women without actually becoming one. Their stage is ordinary life, not show business, but it's still the same, drag performance, and while this person excludes them, I include them.
I do exclude gender variant or genderqueer people, whatever label you use or not, meaning people who just dress everyday as they are being who they are. They don't profess to pretend to be anyone else, just themselves, and that includes wearing any clothes which they like and expresses their tastes and styles.
This is easily confused, as all flavors over non-binary gender expression and presentation, with drag (also female impersonators or illustionists) and crossdressing. It's not the same as the latter two (drag and CD), it's just being and if it's fashion(able) or even to some outlandish, then it's who they are.
And yes, it covers the spectrum of sexual orientation, because sex and gender aren't separate but intertwined in each of us, which can be more confusing as some gay men are and live as genderqueer people, but that doesn't make them drag performers or crossdressers, only who they are.
And in the end, it's still the same, drag performers and crossdressers aren't transgender, just individual personal expressions of personal or public fantasy, and misogynic to women and transwomen.
"Drag performance originates from Western cis gay male subculture and is an overt expression of contempt for women in general and trans* women in particular. In both means and motive, it is a close parallel to the blackface and yellowface performances which were once a common element in minstrel shows: members of a privileged group dress up as members of an oppressed group and play out their own bigoted stereotypes about that group for the amusement of people who share that bigotry. Drag performance is a public playground for the rampant sexism and cissexism of the gay male community, gleefully reiterating and reinforcing every sort of prejudice against women.
Like the cis gay male subculture which spawned it, drag culture is especially contemptuous of trans women. This is illustrated by the way prominent drag queens such as RuPaul and Sharon Needles go out of their way to use their positions as popular media figures to spread dangerous misinformation about trans* people, to encourage the use of transmisogynistic slurs such as “t**nny”, and even to attack those who are respectful towards trans people. Drag queens are so rabidly transmisogynistic that they can’t stand it when others aren’t transmisogynistic.
To be crystal clear, this criticism does not extend to cross-dressing as an expression of nonbinary, genderqueer, and/or genderfluid identities or even cross-dressing as a sexual fetish. It is specifically about drag, as in public showbiz performances built around grossly exaggerated, exhibitionistic cross-dressing as an grotesque parody of women and/or trans women.
Drag is not fabulous. Drag is fucking offensive to all women, and especially to trans women."
On the Mellissa Harris-Perry Show (MSNBC) Ms. Perry talked about the LGBT community and had RuPaul on to talk about drag as an LGBT issue when it's not, never has been and never will be. Drag is not transgender. It's drag and nothing else. As she notes, it's not about the person in normal life, but the drag performance, which is often mistaken as representative of transwomen.
It's the same to me for cross-dressers, the straight (heterosexual) men, usually married and often with a family, who play dressup, becoming "women" when it's just men in dresses living out an innocuous hobby or fetish, but often is also mistaken as representative of transwomen.
They're men, like gay men, just men, and not transgender, which is my argument they don't deserve status as transgender for their public presentation as women. I would argue they deserve some rights but not the same to call themselves transgender. They don't need therapy. They don't need medical intervention to transition.
They don't live as women 24/7 for some public acceptance test. They don't want surgery to change their body. They don't face the lifetime risk of being discovered as not being born female. They don't understand the deep, personal frustrations transwomen face their entire life, being in a wrong body and then after transition, being discovered and exposed for that wrong body.
To me, they're just another flavor of drag, just a personal level and not for performance. They want the fun of pretending to be women without actually becoming one. Their stage is ordinary life, not show business, but it's still the same, drag performance, and while this person excludes them, I include them.
I do exclude gender variant or genderqueer people, whatever label you use or not, meaning people who just dress everyday as they are being who they are. They don't profess to pretend to be anyone else, just themselves, and that includes wearing any clothes which they like and expresses their tastes and styles.
This is easily confused, as all flavors over non-binary gender expression and presentation, with drag (also female impersonators or illustionists) and crossdressing. It's not the same as the latter two (drag and CD), it's just being and if it's fashion(able) or even to some outlandish, then it's who they are.
And yes, it covers the spectrum of sexual orientation, because sex and gender aren't separate but intertwined in each of us, which can be more confusing as some gay men are and live as genderqueer people, but that doesn't make them drag performers or crossdressers, only who they are.
And in the end, it's still the same, drag performers and crossdressers aren't transgender, just individual personal expressions of personal or public fantasy, and misogynic to women and transwomen.
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