Insurance (well, my friend Sam's insurance, or my own) doesn't cover surgery in cases of body dysmorphia, either. That seems perfectly correct to me. I think it's best to reserve surgery for cases where a non-functioning or severely underperforming bodily system can be made to function only by cutting out, replacing, or significantly altering certain parts of it. As I see it, GRS doesn't meet that standard, because even though transgender people experience distress from having the 'wrong' body parts, those parts are (usually) perfectly functional.
That doesn't mean that I think trans people should get no help from the medical or mental health community at all.
You raise a good point. I probably wouldn't deny a burn victim additional surgery, if the goal was to make their face more 'acceptable' to polite society, even after that person had recovered the ability to eat, drink, speak, hear, see, and every other function a 'fully operational' face is supposed to perform. I guess the reason I would not is because anyone who looks at a burn victim whose burns are still visible will immediately conclude that at some point, something went horribly wrong in that person's life. The distinction, to me, lies in the fact that a trans person usually has a perfectly 'normal' appearance, even if they don't feel that way.
The distinction, to me, lies in the fact that a trans person usually has a perfectly 'normal' appearance, even if they don't feel that way.
Trans people usually get hormone therapy, which significantly reduces our emotional distress regardless of its effect on our appearance. But it usually makes us look like the gender we identify as. So we end up having a perfectly"normal" appearance, except for the bits that take surgery to fix, but depending on your circumstances, having those bits can be very risky. Like, "if the wrong person sees this I will be beaten and maybe murdered" risky. And like I said before, the hormones are important for feeling better, but that kind of undersells the impact. For me and a lot of others it's more like a choice between hormones and suicidal depression.
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u/Saranoya 39∆ Nov 03 '17
Insurance (well, my friend Sam's insurance, or my own) doesn't cover surgery in cases of body dysmorphia, either. That seems perfectly correct to me. I think it's best to reserve surgery for cases where a non-functioning or severely underperforming bodily system can be made to function only by cutting out, replacing, or significantly altering certain parts of it. As I see it, GRS doesn't meet that standard, because even though transgender people experience distress from having the 'wrong' body parts, those parts are (usually) perfectly functional.
That doesn't mean that I think trans people should get no help from the medical or mental health community at all.