VUEPOINT: COLD CALCULATION

Week of April 9, 2009, Issue #703

FRONT
VUEPOINT: COLD CALCULATION
Scott Harris / scott@vueweekly.com

In the grand scheme of a wholly unremarkable $36 billion dollar
budget, the somewhat meagre sum of about $700 000 hardly seems like a
nit worth picking, but the decision by the province to end coverage
for new gender reassignment surgeries—more commonly known as
sex-change operations—just seems so mean-spirited that it deserves
comment.

On one level, the move seems like a simple case of cold calculation:
staring down at the barrel of a multi-year, multi-billion dollar
deficit—and still needing to find $215 million to cut this fiscal year
and $2 billion to cut in the next—there was no doubt a whole lot of
stone-turning going on in government buildings. From a political
standpoint, cutting a tiny program that 99.99 per cent of Albertans
will never use, which only directly benefits a handful of members of
the transgender community—not exactly one of the Tories’ key
constituencies—and is for a procedure that most Albertans either don’t
understand or are openly hostile about, makes good political sense.

On the other hand, when considering the lives of Albertans who will be
impacted by the decision, it seems less like cold calculation and more
simply cold. Until now the province has covered up to 16 gender
reassignment surgeries annually, surgeries which cost tens of
thousands of dollars (male-to-female surgeries costing in the range of
$16 000 - $20 000, and female-to-male surgeries costing roughly twice
that for “bottom surgery” and additional amounts for related
mastectomy and hysterectomy). When those costs are “socialized” it’s a
drop in the bucket (actually, a very small percentage of a drop), but
when the cost is borne by individuals, it becomes a much more daunting
sum.

It’s impossible for me as a straight male to imagine the emotional
tumult, discrimination and violence faced by individuals who don’t fit
into society’s tidy conceptions of sex and gender, but it’s not hard
to see that adding a major financial barrier to a recognized necessary
medical procedure that is already rife with hurdles has the very real
potential to literally destroy people’s lives. The move says a lot
about the government, and their willingness to save a few bucks at the
expense of one of the most marginalized groups in Alberta. It’s an
ugly way to make a budget and a sad way to run a province. V