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November 08, 2012 6:12 pm - Associated Press(0) Comments
San Francisco is preparing to become the first U.S. city to provide and cover the cost of sex reassignment surgeries for uninsured transgender residents.
The city's Health Commission voted Tuesday to create a comprehensive program for treating transgender people experiencing mental distress because of the mismatch between their bodies and their gender identities. San Francisco already provides transgender residents with hormones, counseling and routine health services, but has stopped short of offering surgical interventions, Public Health Director Barbara Garcia said Thursday after the vote was announced.
The idea for a new program that included surgeries came out of conversations between public health officials and transgender rights advocates who wanted mastectomies, genital reconstructions and other surgeries that are recommended for some transgender people covered under San Francisco's 5-year-old universal health care plan.
At the urging of the San Francisco Board of Supervisors and the San Francisco-based Transgender Law Center, the commission agreed this week to drop sex reassignment surgery from the list of procedures specifically excluded from the Healthy San Francisco plan.
But Garcia described the move as "a symbolic process" for now because the city currently does not have the expertise, capacity or protocols in place to provide the surgeries through its clinics and public hospital.
"The community felt the exclusion on Healthy San Francisco was discriminatory and we wanted to change that as the first step," she said.
Instead of expanding the existing plan, the Health Commission approved the establishment of a separate program that covers all aspects of transgender health, including gender transition. Garcia hopes to have it running by late next year, but said her department first needs to study how many people it would serve, how much it would cost, who would perform the surgeries and where they would be performed.
"Sex reassignment surgery is not the end all. It's one service that some transgender people want and some don't," she said. "We can probably manage this over the next three years without much of a budget increase because we already have these (other) services covered."
San Francisco in 2001 became the first city in the country to cover sex reassignment surgeries for government employees. Last year, Portland, Ore. did the same. The number of major U.S. companies covering the cost of gender reassignment surgery for transgender workers also doubled last year, reflecting a decades-long push by transgender activists to get insurance companies to treat such surgeries as medically necessary instead of elective procedures.
Kathryn Steuerman, a member of a transgender health advocacy group in San Francisco, said the city's latest move would help residents avoid going into debt to finance operations related to gender transition, as she did.
"I am filled with hope and gratitude that we are achieving this level of support for the well-being of the transgender community," Steuerman said.
Comments
Thinking about moving
I actually wish other states and or cities would follow San Francisco's plans. After all most major cities have the same sort of population, its just that some cites don't want to acknowledge there are people in their cities living stressed out lives because no one wants to understand them.
Moving to California for me would put me closer to my siblings, so although the apple is dangling I will forgo the moving expense and wait unti one of the cities on the East coast follows San Francisco.
CLM thank you for your keen observance and relaying the news to BCTS.
Jill Micayla
Be kinder than necessary,Because everyone you meet
Is fighting some kind of battle.
San Francisco
SF is a great city to live in (apart from the climate, although heaven knows it's better than Boston, and the cost of living, which isn't so great). The only downside to the place that I can think of is that if you're interested in a stealth life, it is totally impossible to 'pass' almost anywhere in the Bay Area. The place is so laden with LBGT people with excellent trannydar that even some genetic women I know have been suspected of being trans.
On the other hand, if you are trans, nobody in the Bay Area gives a damn. So there's that.
Yay for San Francisco.
not as think as i smart i am
Jeeeze!
Jeeeze lady!!!
Complaining about the SanFrancisco climate, you don't know you're born girl. Come and live in the UK where we get Gales, Rain, Snow, Frost, Sunshine, floods and drouts all in the same year ... the same month ... the same week ... the same day even! ............ oh- yes and the occasional 100 mph storms if we live far enough north like the Orkneys and Shetlands and oh-yes, fog, Britain gets lot's more fog than California or the notorious San Francisco bay.
Lady!!! You - just - don't - know - you're - born!!! At least that is climate-wise!
I thought the San Francisco climate to be one of the balmiest and lovliest climbes in the whole of North America.
Now you've got a city that's looking seriously at gender-reassignment-surgery provisions out of state health insurance. Jus' be thankful girl, cos' every other poor sister in the US will be crying with envy for their Frisco Sisters!!
However, Brits and Canadians and Antipodeans will recognise it is a huge step for our anglophone sisters and your British sisters along with your Canadian sisters and Antipodean sisters can smile benignly whilst welcoming you aboard to proper medical provisions for our needs. Congratulations San Francisco and welcome to the world of humane medical provisions!!!
Hugs.
Beverly.
XX
Weather wherever you go
I live in Cambridge Massachusetts these days. We've had a few issues with weather here in the past two weeks. San Francisco doesn't seem so bad by comparison.
I lived near Cambridge in the UK when I was a teenager, for about 2 years. Summer there is gorgeous. You can keep the other seasons thanks.
not as think as i smart i am
Jennifer of Show Me The Money
Jennifer of Show Me The Money http://bigclosetr.us/topshelf/book/4256/show-me-money would ttruly benefit from this
May Your Light Forever Shine
A whoopie doop....
With apologies to the Beach Boys...
My Medical Insurance
doesn't cover GRS
But even if it did for me
you know that I am such a mess
If I were twenty-seven
instead of sixty-one
You know that I would move right there
and join in all the fun, BUT
I wish we all could be San Francisco
I wish we all could be San Francisco
I wish we all could be San Francisco GIRLS!!!!
from California Girls
composed by
Brian Wilson and Mike Love
Love, Andrea Lena
That decides it.
I'm moving to SF ASAP.
According to California's Board of Cosmetology, I'll need to work here in Toledo (well, Ohio, at least, but I can live with my parents and save up some money if I stay in Toledo) for 3 years post-license in order to get my license reciprocated to California... I'll just need to hold out for 4 or 5 more years then... I can do that... I think... hope...
Unless more cities start following, but that doesn't seem likely, very few places outside California have anything even remotely decent for uninsured people's state insurance. Ohio, for example, only provides health care for those who qualify for welfare assistance, which creates this MASSIVE middle ground of people not poor enough to qualify for welfare but not rich enough to afford health insurance.
Abigail Drew.