What's Next?

Now that I have read again that Medicare will cover some or all aspects of genital reassignment surgery, I am sort of stuck between the rock and the bucket place. 

As I have always said, my genitals don't define me to the world and I am not interested in such a major, painful operation at my age. If most of my life was ahead of me, I am sure I would think different.


What I have written about here is my desire for a breast augmentation operation, and it's finally time to stop into a plastic surgeons office to find out if I can do it partially on Medicare's tab.

If you read Michelle Hart's (no relation) comment in my last Veterans Administration post, waiting for the VA at my age could be a death sentence. It seems our country has a penchant for getting into wars it doesn't want to pay for later. 

At any rate, all of this leads me to another point. If I was to put together a "girl" bucket list for myself, I would have to put swimming on it. I never was a huge fan of the water, even though I know how to swim plus in the old days, swimming in wigs was tough. So I never did.

So who knows, and if you do have any input into any of this, please let me know!

Still No Real Movement at the VA

From The Advocate and Autumn Sandeen:
It will likely take a lawsuit  to end the Veterans Affairs policy of denying coverage for gender-confirmation surgery — a procedure currently covered by Medicare. 
Here is an excerpt: "A lawsuit was filed recently that made little news, lost to the headlines of HB 2 and the Department of Education telling America's 13,000-plus school districts that they must accommodate transgender students in accordance with Title IX. This little-heard-of lawsuit was filed by the Transgender Law Center and Lambda Legal, with co-counsel WilmerHale, and in it they've petitioned the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs to change the rule that categorically excludes transition-related surgery for transgender veterans.

For a bit of background, in June of 2011, many of us transgender veterans were pretty excited when the VA announced a standardized policy of respectful and affirming delivery of health care for transgender and intersex veterans. The policy required equal access to affirmative basic health care for transgender veterans across every VA facility — which surprisingly wasn't uniform across the country — and that all medically necessary health care for transgender veterans was and still is to be provided by the VA.

Well, almost all medically necessary health care. Under existing VA regulations, transition-related surgeries — also referred to as gender-affirmation surgeries — aren't performed by or paid for by the VA. In fact, VHA Directive 2013-003 (Providing Health Care For Transgender And Intersex Veterans) states under line item 2.b. "[The] VA does not provide sex reassignment surgery or plastic reconstructive surgery for strictly cosmetic purposes."

Being a transgender veteran myself, I'm not holding my breath waiting for change, but who knows?

Transgender Migration (Archive Post)

Wednesday, March 6, 2013

Transsexual Migrations

"Kristina was born 33 years ago as a boy, but in her teens she realized she was at odds with her body. She has been thinking of sex change since 16, but not until four years ago, after moving to Germany, did she start doing something about it. In Lithuania, sex change operations are impossible because there are no laws governing them. “I was told I needed therapy, they suggested I had my head examined. There was so much mockery before... About locking me in a mental hospital, testing and curing like a lab rat. But it is not a disease, a person is simply born in a wrong body,” she explains."

For more on Kristina and Lithuanian transgender law, go here.