Alberta's transgendered bring protest on funding to legislature

Edmonton Journal, Canada
Alberta's transgendered bring protest on funding to legislature
By Jodie Sinnema, edmontonjournal.com
April 13, 2009 5:18 PM

EDMONTON — Members of Alberta’s transgendered community are ramping up
efforts to reverse a government decision ending funding for
gender-reassignment surgery.

More than 30 people are expected to crowd question period at the
legislature Tuesday with some planning to file human rights complaints
on mass Wednesday morning.

“It’s important to show people that we are far different from the
assumptions that are made quite often,” said Mercedes Allen, a
Calgarian who was scheduled to have a sex-change operation in August
before Alberta Health and Wellness stopped paying for the $18,000 to
$70,000 procedures as part of budget 2009.

“People expect us to be fringe and rabble and such, and that’s not the
case. Many of us are professional people and I think the public needs
to see that.”

To that end, Allen said the group won’t be holding signs or chanting
on the legislature steps. Instead, they are using civic action to show
government representatives that the surgery is not cosmetic, but a
medical necessity for those who believe they were born in the wrong
body and gender.

“One thing that is positive is seeing how many people are stepping up
to the plate and speaking and putting on a good face to the
community,” Allen said. She hopes launching an official human rights
complaint won’t be necessary if the government reinstates funding.

“We would rather not see the human rights issues go ahead because then
it becomes an expensive legal issue and a lot of us have seen that
happen with the Delwin Vriend case,” Allen said, referring to the
landmark gay rights that ended up in the Supreme Court. “I’m an
Alberta and a taxpayer, too. I would rather not go down that route.”

But Allen said she will if it’s necessary. A similar human rights
complaint in Ontario forced the government to reinstate funding for
the surgery 10 years after the province delisted it.

jsinnema@thejournal.canwest.com
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