For a mere $700,000 taken from a $13-billion health budget the

Calgary Sun, Canada
Thu, April 9, 2009

For a mere $700,000 taken from a $13-billion health budget the
province is risking a very costly human-rights complaint

By MICHAEL PLATT

For Michelle Ann Duff, it wasn't a choice between changing a few body
parts through surgery, or learning to live with what she was born
with.

For Duff, sex-change surgery was a decision between an early grave, or
a new life as a woman.

"I had two choices -- number one was to make a gender change, and
number two was to jump in front of a subway car," said Duff.

For the 69-year-old Ontario woman, changing genders was a much bigger
leap of lifestyles than for the relatively few Canadians who undergo
the life-altering switch on an operating table every year.

In 1985, as the soon-to-be "she" boarded a plane to Belgium for a date
with a sex-change specialist, Michael Duff was a world-acclaimed
motorcycle racing star, Canada's own record-setting grand-prix hero.

Retired from racing, and with three children to support from two
marriages, Duff abandoned the uber-macho world of Castrol oil, pistons
and leather to start a new life as a woman.

"I hate that overused cliche, a woman trapped in man's body, but
that's basically it," said Duff, speaking from her home out east.

"It's been shown time-and-time again that the only way to connect for
a person with gender dysphoria is to make the outside the same as the
way they feel inside."

Gender dysphoria is a recognized psychological condition which causes
distress and depression, because the victim is miserable with the sex
they were born with.

In Alberta, the condition is considered serious enough to qualify
victims for sex-change surgery, paid for by the province for the past
decade.

Or at least it was.

On Tuesday, while hiking the price of beer and cigarettes, the
province's budget also yanked funding for transgender surgery,
supposedly to cut $700,000 a year out of a $13-billion purse.

Petty doesn't begin to describe the few pennies saved by cutting
funding to the 10 to 20 Albertans who underwent the $20,000-to-$70,000
surgery each year.

Already, there's talk of a human-rights complaint -- Ontario faced a
similar challenge and lost in 2008 -- but those who have been awaiting
their turn for change are devastated.

"I've been on hormones for two years and dressing as a female, and
then they do this -- how is this even possible?" said Paris, a Calgary
male-to-female gender converter, who asked her name be changed to
avoid recognition.

"I've been waiting to get on the waiting list -- now I have no idea
what I'm supposed to do."

Those who have started the surgery, which can take more than one
operation, will have their change covered by Alberta Health, but those
like Paris, who are still functionally of their birth gender, are out
of luck.

"It's not the same as getting a boob-job," said Paris, who describes
the change as essential to a person's identity, unlike cosmetic
surgery.

A Facebook group, Reinstate Gender Reassignment Surgery Funding in
Alberta, already has in excess of 300 members, and a campaign has
started to send a letter of complaint, along with 19 cents, to the
province.

That 19 cents represents the per-Albertan cost for funding the
surgery, highlighting the pittance at stake, cash-wise.

On the human front, the cost could be incalculable: The Facebook group
already contains messages from despondent patients hoping to undergo
surgery, which they can't afford without funding.

"My chest surgery date is coming up in November, and if it's not
covered at that time.. I will not be able to pay for it myself.. so
I'll have to go without.. which will most likely result in me feeling
hopeless and suicidal," wrote Dominic Scaia, who gave reporters
permission to quote him.

Kristopher Wells, a researcher at the Institute for Sexual Minority
Studies at the University of Alberta, said the province is facing a
serious legal battle, which will end up costing far more than
$700,000.

"They made this cut without understanding the personal and legal
implications," said Wells.

"A human-rights complaint will be filed -- that's the talk in the
community at this point."

Copyright © 2008, Canoe Inc. All rights reserved.

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