No Designation

The Politics of Identity on the Edge

Big News if You Want to Get Married or Get Sex Reassignment Surgery

This morning I awoke to two major pieces of news, receiving multiple email announcements about each. The California Supreme Court ruled that the ban on same-sex marriage was unconstitutional. And the Ontario Heath Minister announced that Ontario’s provincial health care will resume covering Sex Reassignment Surgery. I guess that means if you want to get married you can go to California, and if you want SRS you can marry a Canadian.

Both of these are tremendous and huge stories that indicate a major shift in our rights, but I couldn’t help noticing a difference in who was talking about which one.

My inbox was full of emails discussing the marriage case from PFLAG, the Family Equality Council, COLAGE, Lambda Legal, the Stonewall Democrats, Basic Rights Oregon, and two from the National Gay and Lesbian Task Force.

And I had a few emails notifying me of Canada’s shift in policy from a friend, another activist, another friend.

Why weren’t any of the organizations commenting on Canada’s news? I went to my favorite queer blog, The Bilerico Project, and saw half a dozen posts on California’s Supreme Court ruling, but none on the SRS coverage in Canada. As a regular reader, I shot the editor off a email in case they hadn’t heard, and while promising to cover it tomorrow, I was told that no one’s going to talk about anything but California’s marriage ruling today.

That made explicit that which all these organizational press releases only implied, SRS is not as big as marriage.

With all the talk about trans people being “less acceptable” and “behind” the gay and lesbian movement, you’d think that this would be bigger news. I mean, the GOVERNMENT IS PAYING FOR SEX REASSIGNMENT SURGERY! Doesn’t that completely blow out of the water the assumption that trans people are too freaky to be included in a non-discrimination bill? That’s gotta be at least as big as one more population being granted marriage rights in one more state.

Granted, it is Canada, so I’d expect the news to cover it less in the United States, but still, do you remember how big a deal it was (for US folks) when Canada legalized marriage? The reality is that all our LGBT organizations, even the ones making big strides in trans-inclusiveness, even the ones I wholeheartedly support, are just not tapped into trans news, don’t make trans news a priority, or perhaps just don’t think trans news is as big as gay and lesbian news. It’s a result of having the T added on at the end of the acronym. The organizations may support trans rights, but for the most part they weren’t founded on that idea.

It’s the legacy of being an institutional afterthought.

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May 15, 2008 - Posted by nodesignation | Organization, Relationship Recognition, transphobia | , , | 5 Comments

5 Comments »

  1. I just got your blog info from Sable and I hadn’t heard anything about the SRS health care inclusion in Canada at all before reading about it here. This is very disheartening because I was just at a planning committee meeting for Creating Change tonight! There was an announcement about the failed marriage ban in California, and a little wedding cake to celebrate, but nothing about what happened in Canada. How disappointing!

    Comment by Savannah | May 15, 2008 | Reply

  2. I completely agree with your thoughts on same-sex marriage trumping SRS in the public eye, and many many private minds, and the T-as-afterthought structure to too many queer orgs.

    However, it is also significant to note that the announcement about Ontario’s provincial health plan “covering SRS” is being met with extremely cautious approval by (at least my corner of) the queer community.

    Two provinces in Canada (BC and AB) already officially cover SRS already, although it is somewhat limited in those provinces (btw, there’s no national health plan in Canada – just a national law that sets standards for provinical health plans). Ontario’s plan (OHIP) will likely be even more limited, indicated by a) the way Ontario used to cover SRS a decade ago, and b) the clinic in charge of most official trans health care in Ontario.

    We shall see. We can be hopeful that this is some sea change. And if it is, we will definitely celebrate. But – call me cynical – it is likely that there will be excessive and often traumatic hoops to jump through and a very limited number of procedures available (with FTMs more likely to be left out). I hope I’m wrong!

    ps- Maybe I’m just being a self-effacing/jaded Canadian, but I never expect to see our issues covered in the US. Can an American even name the Prime Minister? Or know we have a PM not a President? Our whole population is the size of California, so…we don’t seem to matter much south of the border.

    Comment by greyson | May 16, 2008 | Reply

  3. Thanks, Greyson, for the education. I wrote that hurriedly knowing that I was missing a lot of details (such as national vs provincial health plans).

    And, I’ll certainly be cynical right along side you when it comes to bureaucratic implementation of trans health care. But, personally, I’m cynical about the California supreme court as well. That story’s not over and the opposition is making an attempt to block those gains. Even if we get those gains, it’s not going to help all of the folks who, regardless of sexual orientation, can’t or won’t get married.

    And Canada becomes important sometimes. I can remember when there was a flurry of news about marriage coming out of Canada. While I don’t expect the mainstream news to be announcing this, I would hope that at least the queer blogs and/or queer orgs already making celebratory announcements would at least mention it.

    Comment by nodesignation | May 16, 2008 | Reply

  4. Granted while this is an important issue, I think that its time that we stop grouping Lesbian and Gays with Transgenders as its a completely different struggle and you said it yourself… so if we want Transgendered people to be recognized perhaps we should allow them a space to develop an identity and a struggle that is independent of Lesbians and Gays

    Comment by Neesha Fakir | May 28, 2008 | Reply

  5. Re: Canada, this info may be a bit late, but in fact, most Provinces cover GRS, and have since our national Health Care system was implemented. Only Nova Scotia and PEI don’t, and I don’t know about New Brunswick and the Territories. Simply, because GRS is considered medically necessary, the coverage exists (it isn’t because there’s more acceptance here). Ontario had tried to make an exemption regarding trans health, and the Ontario Human Rights Commission overturned it (after 10 years of fighting). That’s why it was reinstated there.

    But in some Provinces, the hoops one has to jump through are almost impossible, to get funding. In just one example, Saskatchewan, Manitoba, Ontario and Newfoundland all require the rubber stamp of the Centre for Addictions and Mental Health (CAMH, formerly known as the Clarke Institute), where they brag about turning away 95% of people who come to them about gender issues. CAMH employs a few names that might be familiar to you: Dr. Kenneth Zucker practices there, and Dr. Ray Blanchard is (or was) the head of the Sexual and Gender Disorders unit. Stipulations and requirements vary from Province to Province, and I think the only one right now where things go smoothly once you see the therapist is Alberta. However, there’s a two-year waiting list to see the therapist, and some suggestions that things are seriously going to change in the next year or two.

    I don’t know everything about coverage across the Provinces, but if you’re interested in details or if it can help in your activism (i.e. if you do get national health care and want to press for inclusion), send me a note.

    Re: inclusion in GLBT: I do believe there are enough similarities that we need to remain allied with the GLB. But because our needs are so unique to us and because most GLB folk simply don’t recognize or understand them, we need to be doing our own advocacy. Forge ahead, and if some of the GLBT groups fall in behind with some support, excellent. If they don’t, well, at least we’re moving forward.

    Comment by dentedbluemercedes | October 31, 2008 | Reply


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