This famously tolerant city is poised to become the first in the nation to extend health benefits to municipal workers who want sex-change operations. California, Minnesota and nearly two dozen cities make it illegal to discriminate against transsexuals. But San Francisco would go a step further if the city's Board of Supervisors on Monday approves coverage for the therapy, hormones and surgery necessary to make a man a woman or a woman a man. In 1991, San Francisco was the first big city after Seattle to grant benefits to the domestic partners of its gay and lesbian employees. Six years later, the city required all of its contractors to offer that coverage.
Supporters now say transsexuals deserve full coverage, too.
Here we are the champions of equal benefits for equal work. But these individuals don't have access to our own health plan. That's inequity, and it's hypocritical on our part. Opponents argue that a sex change should not be covered because it's optional, even cosmetic, and not a medical necessity. It has nothing to do with being biased against transsexuals.