Insurance Exclusions Against Transgender Persons Should Be Eliminated

"Con ignores the William"s Institute study which found that .3% of the U. S. population self-identify as trans. " Perhaps the pimple analogy was not the best analogy. Still in a world where there were only one kind of transsexual say mtf would pro be arguing that that invalidates gender dysphoria? Furthermore I gave plenty of other analogies such as weight. There are people who want to be fat. If they can't afford enough food to be fat but have enough to live should they get their medical insurance to buy them extra food? For hair color should hair dye be covered as a medical expense? "Con intimates politics were involved but provides no proof. Con suggests that everything gets in the DSM but I sure do not see any reference to pimple dysphoria. " The evidence is that they try to justify putting it in there on the grounds of "it"s a brain condition" but if you want to get technical so is every variation minor or major in human thought or behavior. So why aren"t the other variations considered treatable medical conditions when they obviously are physically different in their brains in some way? We live in a material Universe so any and all variations in human thought, human behavior, human personality must come with brain differences. Picking which ones are medical conditions and which ones are not is completely arbitrary. They just make it sound scientific by selectively carrying out studies that show brain correlations and not bothering to mention that every single variation must have its own correlations. They even apply double standards. For instance introversion shows brain differences but it"s not considered a treatable disorder. It would be easy to argue that introversion causes distress or functional impairment i. e. reduced chances at climbing the social ladder as effectively. One could also make that argument for extraversion i. e. some people are so extraverted it gets annoying. The people who write the DSM pick and choose what to consider a disorder arbitrarily, they are not reliable. "Con"s says being transgender is a "minor variant in human thought and behavior. "" You misread. I didn"t say that it was a minor variant I said that every minor variant in human thought and behavior must have brain correlations just in order to exist. "Note how Con does not go back to saying he would be okay with having his gender flipped or that this would be the normal human response. " I admit I would not prefer it. Menstrual cycles and pregnancy sound terrible. But I"d adjust. I wouldn"t get a sex change operation back to male unless I was really rich. I see no difference between that preference and my preference that I have more muscles. I would not think either way that I had some right to demand insurance companies pay for it. "Con likewise ignores that this dysphoria is occurring to children at their most vulnerable and ignores the statistics provided re suicide, discrimination, etc. " Then to be consistent if there was ever a case of a child saying "I"m supposed to be black" when the child is born with white skin and the child suffers suicidal thoughts and discrimination we should say that at least in this child"s case there is a real disorder and the child should get treatment to darken their skin and it should be covered by insurance. "If a child does not receive support for being transgender or, worse, gets slapped down when he or she works does express her true identity, then every action has to be scrutinized before being expressed. " Scrutinizing every action before expressing them is a choice. And besides that I used to do that, does that mean I"m transsexual? When I was a kid I went through a phase of worrying excessively about being seen as a "sissy". I grew out of it. Why do we always hear about transgender people scrutinizing and trying to conform but never about someone who never tried to conform to gender expectations who then wants to transition? It seems like a sex change operation may be a way to make up for your regret of wasting so much time trying to conform to society"s expectations. "This is the type of internal struggle which has led 41% of us to attempt suicide. Imagine looking at a girl when you are a teenager and thinking, "I want her almost as much as I want to be her. " Without support, how is a teen to process these feelings. Many don"t. " I"ve looked at guys and girls and thought "I"d love to be that person" just as I"ve looked at black people and white people and thought the same thing. Doesn"t mean I want all their exact physical traits. "I do not understand this sentence of Con: "As to surgery being effective in treating dysphoria I'm sure it would also be extremely effective in treating a person's "dysphoria" or feeling bad about the way it is in relation to other aspects of bodily appearance. " If explained, I will be happy to respond. " I mean that if surgery to change gender is effective in making someone who wants to be another gender feel better then it should apply to all other aspects of physical appearance. If I want an extra arm insurance should cover it. "Con talks about line drawing but the lines he draws are without basis. He compares non-existent dysphoric conditions to Gender Dysphoria. " So according to Pro gender dysphoria didn"t exist before it became an official diagnosis. "Please remember Con accepted my definition of gender identity as "an individual's internal sense of being male, female, or something else. " Con indicates the sex can be externally changed which has nothing to do with changing Gender Identity. " Internal means the mind. Changing things in one"s mind is easy. Just use different words. Just say "I am a boy" or "I am a girl". It"s easy. "Men and Women Can Do Whatever We Want, No Need to Conform. " We can pretend we have no gender identity but most do. Those who do not have a gender identity or believe their gender identity is fluid will probably be among the 99.995% of insured people who would not use this coverage. " I wasn"t talking about having no gender identity. I identify as male because I have male parts. However I don"t consider me being male to obligate me to anything. It"s just a physical characteristic. That Pro thinks this means I have no gender identity implicitly prescribes the belief that there are proper behaviors for men and for women and if you don"t care about them it means you"re not really a man or really a woman. This is absurd. "I am mystified as to how Con can claim being trans and wanting your body to conform with your internal Gender Identity is an act of conformity to society. " You are changing your body so that society will be more pleased with how it lines up with your personality and behavior. That"s how it"s conformity. "nothing whatsoever was pushing me to "conform" to be a girl. " Your personality naturally matched what was expected of a girl so you subconsciously learned to think of yourself as "girl" and only later learned that "girl" meant having certain parts and rather than change your deeply ingrained personality you decided your body was wrong. Others may have had other reactions. For instance another person in your shoes may have just thought of himself as a "boy" who liked acting girly. Because you wanted so badly to fit in you instead insisted you actually were a girl since if you were a girl then you"d fit in. In conclusion, there is no reason to accord the neurological preference of wanting to be another gender any more rights than having a neurologically-based preference of wanting other body differences i. e. a different weight, different skin color and they must be neurological because all thought and behavior is based on neurology. Having insurance cover it may push the expectation upon people that if they behave a certain way they should get a sex change operation. If people want to change their gender let them do that and let them pay for it.