Transgender want YOU to pay for their procedures

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Citation? Because all the research I've seen suggests that once they get the treatment, the symptoms of gender dysphoria disappear, and the suicide rate isn't much different from the general population.

Anyway, the risks of hormone treatment are minimal. I'd say it's safer than many psych meds, anyway. It does impair fertility, but the effects are reversible. Certainly, less permanent than a vasectomy or a tubal ligation, and no one seems to make a big deal about those treatments. (Besides, we're overpopulated anyway. Why should we be upset about someone voluntarily giving up their fertility?)

The surgeries are riskier, and of course irreversible, but the research shows that regretting SRS is extremely rare as long as the recipients are properly screened beforehand. Plus, not all trans people want all of the surgeries - some are OK being a guy with a vagina as long as they don't have boobs, or similar compromises.

As the older sister of a depressed teen, I've actually wished my brother was MTF, because then he could come out and we'd have a clear plan for how to make him - or rather her - happy again. As it is, he's one of the roughly 20% of depressed people who don't respond to SSRIs, and we're trying things like atypical antipsychotics and hospitalization with no guarantee that any of it will make him feel any better. I would gladly get used to different pronouns and watch my brother turn into a girl if that would make him happy. But sadly, that doesn't seem to be the problem for him.

In most countries, people who have body dysmorphia aren't allowed elective amputations.

Some people, usually middle-aged men, strongly feel that some part of their body, usually their left leg, is not truly their own or somehow does not belong.

Mostly they are treated with antipsychotics.

In time, we may find a better way to treat these people. To bring them peace without making them zombies or cutting off their left leg.

If that leads to discoveries that would allow similar treatment of gender dysmorphia, i would expect that we would see a decrease in reassignment surgeries.

If it were that easy, psychiatrists would drug people out of their gender dysmorphia. Obviously it doesn't work. If it did, don't you think they would be doing it?

In time, we may find a better way to treat these people.

One solution might be "brain transplants" onto grown bodies of the opposite gender.

Recently, this surgeon said he wanted to be the first head transplant surgeon.
http://phenomena.nationalgeographic.com ... -the-show/

Or we might discover a single base pair mutation and treat it with synthetic gene drivers.

We might uncover a specific hormonal pathway that can be permanently altered with targeted electromagnetic waves.

What I'm saying is that we might find a better way of making these people happy and functional. A less invasive way that is easier on everyone and requires less investment and less risk.

The future is wide open. There was even a corny Star Trek: Next Generation episode about a gender neutral planet where Commander Riker is so sexy he turns one of the inhabitants hetero for him. This is considered scandalous on their planet, and they have a noninvasive treatment that takes a couple hours and completely cures people of their gender identity.

Riker is very disappointed when his intergalactic strange gets captured and cured and no longer wants to be boned by him.

In the US isn't it whatever insurance policy you have with you employer, that covers you for any procedures that you require (beard removal, facial surgery, breast reduction etc.)? So is the article arguing that the government should make up the difference between what you can claim from insurance and out of pocket expenses? If that is the case I would argue that the government shouldn't have to make up the difference, because there are limits to what governments can afford to spend on it's health budget.

What article?

I should not have to pay for what amounts to someone else's elective surgery.

"Elective surgery or elective procedure is surgery that is scheduled in advance because it does not involve a medical emergency".
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Elective_surgery

Gender-transition surgery is not an emergency procedure, since the person already has a healthy body. He or she just wants it to appear to be something else, thus he or she chooses - or elects - to undergo surgery to change the appearance of his or her body. This fits the definition of elective surgery.

Of course, if the individual believes that the only alternative is suicide, then the expressed or implied threat of suicide may require emergency intervention. However, since the suicide rate among transgender adults in an international study was almost 800 per 100,000, even successful surgery is no guarantee that the subject will not commit suicide. In comparison, the suicide rate in the U.S. for all people is 13 per 100,000. (That study is briefly described in This Article.)

So, it all seems to come down to "Gimme my surgery, or else I will kill myself" - a hostage situation, in which the perpetrator is also the "victim".

So for some, it is easier to give in to this Hobson's Choice than to be blamed for "causing" another person to commit suicide. Besides, there's money to be made in performing the surgical procedure, providing the hormone treatments, and in counseling and training the person to behave more like their claimed gender, only to watch 1 out of every 125 transitioned individuals kill themselves anyway.

As for me, I refuse to pay for someone else's elective surgery, as this may contribute to that person being dis-satisfied with the results, and committing suicide anyway.

Better to do nothing and not have their deaths on my conscience, than to get involved and have them die as a result of that involvement.

LoveNotHate's point just sailed right over your head.

Would you oppose coverage of cataract surgery? It, too, is elective:



https://my.clevelandclinic.org/services ... ct-surgery

EDIT: It seems that you consider elective to be synonymous with cosmetic or medically unnecessary. If so, then you are misusing that word. I would advise using one of those two terms instead of elective.

Given I support the idea of Universal health care....so what?

The more I think about it the more I'm against it since I don't believe its on sound scientific or medical ground, gender dysphoria considering its implications is a serious mental illness and I don't believe enabling body mutilation or pumping them full of hormones under the guise of medicine is the most beneficial thing to do. The behavior in of itself doesn't necessarily need or even should be corrected if there is no other issues but you have to draw a line somewhere, you have to protect people from harming themselves. The gender binary has been rejected, gay marriage is legal and widely accepted, it's a whole new world so I think we should to help people accept themselves for who they are and promote of tolerance of such instead of engaging in this delusion that we can literally change people's gender via Frankenstein experiment. Are gender roles defined or are they not? Should we be promoting that what makes a man or woman is just a sum of their reproductive parts? Is it innate and unchangable or is it man made?

This is always going to be a difficult subject to address, and one which is far more nuanced than a lot of the responses in this thread account for. Based only on my own experience of and discussions with transgender people, I would draw the line at removal/alteration of primary sex organs until such a time as we can do a complete and safe transplant. Hormones, therapy and support should be provided as part of any comprehensive state health service as these things do directly impact the physical, mental and emotional well-being of the afflicted (or indeed conflicted).

For me. what would benefit you would also benefit us as a society as far as this issue is concerned.

Well that is your opinion...but gender dysphoria is a recognized health issue, and the treatment includes changing the bodies gender. Also who said anything about taking money away from other necessary medical services? What makes you think it would have to come from that?

You think its a freakish desire but its recognized as a valid treatment for the disorder its for.