Let people understand something about trans people

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Read U.S. v. Windsor. The 5th amendment requires that the federal government provide for equal protection under the law, under the Due Process Clause. The law prohibiting the federal government from recognizing gay marriages singled out gays and lesbians as a group; such singling out violated the Due Process Clause.

In the case of transsexual surgery, it is medically necessary and part of the accepted standards of care. By arbitrarily refusing coverage for a medically necessary procedure needed by many transsexual people while providing coverage for other necessary procedures, the federal government would be singling out transsexual people as a group. Just like the singling out above, the singling out here would also violate the Due Process Clause.

Does that clarify things for you?

It doesn't matter if it's a part of the treatment. It's still a privilege and not a right--and thus, the government should not pay for it.



No. As long as the US government does not pay for cancer treatment or AIDS medicines, it extremely unfair to pay for SRS, which is still a cosmetic procedure--regardless of how much it improves someone's self-esteem. If the government were to pay for SRS, it might as well fund surgery that changes race, given that many members of ethnic minorities suffer from internalized racism.

Yes. No one has a right to health care in the USA except prisoners. You are correct about that.

However, if the government does decide to provide health care to citizens, it cannot do so in an arbitrary fashion that goes against equal protection. By providing Medicare, the goverment is creating a program to provide health care to a group of its citizens. It cannot arbitarily deny certain procedures in a way that would discriminate against a group.



I think you are being a bit deceptive here. We were talking about Medicare specifically, which does cover cancer treatment and AIDS medicines. Now, you went and expanded the topic to include everyone, and then use that as an argument not to provide SRS under Medicare. I think that you are not really being very serious anymore in this conversation.

In addition, you are subscribing to the philosophy of, One ill turn deserves another. Even if it were true that Medicare did not cover cancer treatment and AIDS medicines, that doesn't mean the fight for coverage of sex reassignment surgery isn't right. It doesn't mean it should be diminished. You are basically saying, Don't solve any other problems until you've solved this one. In reality, however, it means you don't want the problem in question to be solved. You diminish the problem.

And yes, for the umpteenth time, sex reassignment surgery is medically necessary and should be covered. It doesn't matter what kind of surgery it is, for if it is medically necessary, it should be covered. You have failed to do anything to address this and the evidence shown on this forum. Until you do that, then it's clear you are not a serious contender in this conversation.

How nice of you to demonstrate that you have not read (or understood) United States v. Windsor.

First of all, the 5th Amendment doesn't mention marriage either. In fact, the word is nowhere to be found in the US constitution. Yet, here we are, with a constitutional right to have the federal government recognize gay marriage.


I am not thinking of the 8th Amendment. I am thinking of the 5th Amendment. Now, here is a quick lesson in US case law. Class is in.

United States v. Windsor ruled a ban on gay marriage unconstitutional on *this* basis (and I quote the official opinion by Anthony Kennedy):

"The power the Constitution grants it also restrains. And though Congress has great authority to design laws to fit its own conception of sound national policy, it cannot deny the liberty protected by the Due Process Clause of the Fifth Amendment.

What has been explained to this point should more than suffice to establish that the principal purpose and the necessary effect of this law are to demean those personswho are in a lawful same-sex marriage. This requires the Court to hold, as it now does, that DOMA is unconstitutional as a deprivation of the liberty of the person protected by the Fifth Amendment of the Constitution.

The liberty protected by the Fifth Amendment’s Due Process Clause contains within it the prohibition against denying to any person the equal protection of the laws. See Bolling, 347 U. S., at 499–500; Adarand Constructors, Inc. v. Peña, 515 U. S. 200, 217–218 (1995). While the Fifth Amendment itself withdraws from Government the power to degrade or demean in the way this law does, the equal protection guarantee of the Fourteenth Amendment makes that Fifth Amendment right all the more specific and all the better understood and preserved."

Source (page 25):
http://www.law.cornell.edu/supct/pdf/12-307.pdf

So, the issue is whether or not the ban on sex reassignment surgery violates equal protection. Since the US government has enacted Federal tax-funded health care policies, and it is explicitly and arbitrarily excluding individuals with gender dysphoria from relevant treatment, it will be extremely difficult for the government to ward of an equal protection violation, as the singling out of sex reassignment surgery has no valid scientific basis.

The difficulty of defending the exclusion of SRS in court is actually made even worse by the fact that the exclusion was originally based on medical concerns. Since the opinion of SRS in the medical establishment has shifted massively in the last 30 years, upholding this exclusion becomes even more difficult to justify...

I was already familiar with the case--and thus, I had no need to click your link. Saying that transgendered people should have SRS at 30,000-something-something USD (plus facial feminization surgery, which is just as expensive) covered by the government because a ban on gay marriage violates personal freedom, is a false equivalency. If the government were to ban gender reassignment therapy altogether, we may talk about the fifth amendment.



You're pretty much demonstrating that you can't apply knowledge here; you merely find stuff on Google and use fallacies as a desperate mean to discredit anyone who disagrees with you.

The fifth amendment is about personal freedom. Since gay marriage is about individuals and their right to marry who they want--and since gay marriage isn't paid for by tax money, a ban on it would be unconstitutional. On the other hand, not wanting the government to fund gay marriages when they do not fund straight marriages, is not by any means unconstitutional. Since the founding fathers did not distinguish between personal and economic freedom, using tax money for cosmetic surgery would violate the fifth amendment.



And this is relevant because...? Where precisely in this thread did anyone speak out against gay marriage?



Someone with cancer will die without treatment, someone with GID won't. Nobody in this thread has said that SRS should be banned altogether; funding it without funding more important medical issues first would just be unfair to someone with more severe problems.


The difficulty of defending the exclusion of SRS in court is actually made even worse by the fact that the exclusion was originally based on medical concerns. Since the opinion of SRS in the medical establishment has shifted massively in the last 30 years, upholding this exclusion becomes even more difficult to justify...[/quote]

On what do you base this theory? Would individual variation support more use of reassignment surgery or less? Why do you think that is it appropriate to respond with sarcasm to someone who genuinely wants to understand the problem rather than apply bias?



By responding on behalf of apple, I must assume that you also support snark as an appropriate means of communication in lieu of actually making a legitimate point. [/interest in thread]

Kurgan, you are clearly completely clueless about US case law. The 5th Amendment reference in United States v. Windsor is about Equal Protection. The reason why the court invokes the 5th Amendment is because this amendment incorporates the Fourteenth amendment (and with it, the Equal Protection Clause) with regards to the federal government, as per Bolling v. Sharpe.

I even provided a quote from the SCOTUS opinion explicitly demonstrating this, but apparently this too went over your head.

Bolling v. Sharpe is one of the most important and controversial Supreme court opinions *ever* handed down in the US, vastly reducing the power of the federal government and vastly increasing the power of SCOTUS. The fact that you are unfamiliar with it makes your claim that I "can't apply knowledge here" the very definition of irony.

Law. Yet another subject too difficult for Kurgan to comprehend...

Section 1. All persons born or naturalized in the United States, and subject to the jurisdiction thereof, are citizens of the United States and of the State wherein they reside. No State shall make or enforce any law which shall abridge the privileges or immunities of citizens of the United States; nor shall any State deprive any person of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law; nor deny to any person within its jurisdiction the equal protection of the laws.

Section 2. Representatives shall be apportioned among the several States according to their respective numbers, counting the whole number of persons in each State, excluding Indians not taxed. But when the right to vote at any election for the choice of electors for President and Vice President of the United States, Representatives in Congress, the Executive and Judicial officers of a State, or the members of the Legislature thereof, is denied to any of the male inhabitants of such State, being twenty-one years of age, and citizens of the United States, or in any way abridged, except for participation in rebellion, or other crime, the basis of representation therein shall be reduced in the proportion which the number of such male citizens shall bear to the whole number of male citizens twenty-one years of age in such State.

Section 3. No person shall be a Senator or Representative in Congress, or elector of President and Vice President, or hold any office, civil or military, under the United States, or under any State, who, having previously taken an oath, as a member of Congress, or as an officer of the United States, or as a member of any State legislature, or as an executive or judicial officer of any State, to support the Constitution of the United States, shall have engaged in insurrection or rebellion against the same, or given aid or comfort to the enemies thereof. But Congress may, by a vote of two-thirds of each House, remove such disability.

Section 4. The validity of the public debt of the United States, authorized by law, including debts incurred for payment of pensions and bounties for services in suppressing insurrection or rebellion, shall not be questioned. But neither the United States nor any State shall assume or pay any debt or obligation incurred in aid of insurrection or rebellion against the United States, or any claim for the loss or emancipation of any slave; but all such debts, obligations and claims shall be held illegal and void.

Section 5. The Congress shall have power to enforce, by appropriate legislation, the provisions of this article."





The reason why you keep using the same false equivalency over and over again is because you've painted yourself into a corner (i.e. you failed to apply knowledge, or you applied it the wrong way). I'm well aware of the fact that a ban on gay marriage is unconstitutional; can we please direct the thread back to gender reassignment surgery? Banning SRS altogether would be unconstitutional; not funding it would not be.

You keep bringing in United States v. Windsor because you think people are impressed by the fact that you know something any idiot can read about. There are many cases like that; the common denominator in most gay related landmark cases, is discrimination. Not paying for SRS is not discrimination.

Last edited by Kurgan on 31 Oct 2013, 7:39 pm, edited 1 time in total.

Have you read the APA Task Force report yet? It dives deep into that problem, looking at a huge chunk of the literature. If the bolded were true, I expect you would find that report quite interesting. A link to it can be found on the 3rd page (it's a tiny url).

Still harping on this again, huh? This sentence is like several pieces of misinformation bunched into one package.

You continue to divorce the decision to not fund SRS from its context.

*looks around... sees the entire medical establishment agreeing with me (and the government of Norway providing fully tax-payer funded SRS).* Big corner...

Don't flatter yourself, Kurgan. This isn't a debate on who is wrong or right. It is a debate on whether Kurgan will grow up or not.


Withholding individuals from benefits otherwise granted by federal law is unconstitutional, if that restriction cannot survive judicial scrutiny. As I have previously stated, I find it highly unlikely that such a arbitrary restriction on Federal health care coverage will stand up in court.

From United States v. Windsor:
"Under DOMA, same-sex married couples have their lives burdened, by reason of government decree, in visible and public ways. By its great reach, DOMA touches many aspects of married and family life, from the mundane to the profound. It prevents same-sex married couples from obtaining government healthcare benefits they would otherwise receive."

Just because you deliberately ignore economists, psychologists, surgeons and doctors who disagree with you, does not mean that everyone supports you. Public funding of SRS is not something the people widely agree to here--and many reacted negatively to it, given that the medical institutions of Norway are on a very tight budget.



If I'm the immature one in this debate, I find it funny that I'm not the one who wants a nanny state.



They had their lives burdened because the ban on gay marriage promoted the idea that homosexual relationships are any different from heterosexual relationships--and that homosexuality was "wrong" and heterosexuality was "right". Transgendered people have exactly the same healthcare benefits as cisgendered people have, so your analogy still fails.

Tell me. Why are you so worried about eliminating funding for SRS when we should be helping the children dying in Darfur, a much more severe problem? It would just be so unfair to the children in Darfur if you had to elbow priority away from them and toward eliminating funding for SRS.

Because of political corruption, it would not be possible to help all the children of Darfur without military intervention, which is clearly the larger of two evils. The reason why so many people who apply for SRS today in Norway are turned down (90-95%), is partly because the budget.

Yes. A lot of people out of transphobia and ignorance I would expect to be opposed. If, however, you look at the people who have look at the evidence in detail, you will tend to find much more support. You would also tend to find court rulings supporting it.



No. They don't. Having the same level of healthcare benefits means their needs are all being met. Different needs mean different ways of meeting them, but it should not be judged based on a one-size-fits-all program; the program must meet each individual's needs. Having the same level of healthcare benefits is not occurring for people with gender dysphoria who need surgery. Their medical needs are being neglected.

Alas, we talk past each other. You think it's just cosmetic and unnecessary and that people with gender dysphoria can live just fine without it. The evidence is against you, but I don't think you care. You remind me of the definition of a crank, which is a man who cannot be turned.