Province reinstating coverage of gender-reassignment surgery
EDMONTON - Gina Bennett “flew off the handle” when she learned the Alberta government is reinstating funding for gender-reassignment surgery three years after it was cut in the provincial budget.
“(I’m) elated. There is a sense of relief,” said Bennett, 27, who has been living as a woman for five years and has been moving from job to job, trying to earn higher wages to pay for her own surgery. “Who figured it would have been the Conservatives bringing it back in? This has turned my opinion of (Premier Alison) Redford.”
The funding will begin mid-June.
In April 2009, the government cut the $700,000 in annual funding to cover the surgeries for about 16 people each year. At the time, then-health minister Ron Liepert said the cut was based solely on cost savings, although people from the transgender community calculated the move saved each Albertan 18 cents.
Each surgery costs about $18,000 to $70,000. Bennett estimates her surgery to change from man to woman will cost $24,000. She has saved only a few hundred dollars working at $14 an hour jobs at Superstore, Walmart and Princess Auto. She hopes to soon start loading trucks for a potato chip company where she’ll make close to $20.
“It’s been kind of tough,” said Bennett, who moved from Halifax to Edmonton in October 2009, believing the government was going to immediately overturn it’s April 2009 decision to cease funding.
Bennett struggled with her identity since age 13, living through severe depression, three suicide attempts and a hospital stay before she discovered herself through a Halifax-based youth project for gay, lesbian, bisexual, transgendered and queer youth.
In 2007, she began transitioning her gender, and started hormone therapy in 2009. Bennett hopes surgery will be available soon.
“For me, it means life will be able to continue,” she said.
Kris Wells, researcher with the Institute for Sexual Minority Studies and Services at the University of Alberta, called it a historic moment for the province, noting the announcement comes the same week a federal bill received second reading to include gender identity in the Canadian Human Rights Act.
“On the heels of that, and today being the start of Edmonton’s Pride Festival, (this) is pretty significant news and a huge step forward for human rights in the province,” Wells said.
The government and Redford have been working on the reinstatement of funding for some time, he said.
“It’s reassuring to see that the premier is a woman of action,” Wells said.
“This is a premier who squarely believes in the importance of not only serving all Albertans but ensuring all Albertans are treated equitably and equally in all facets of public service and public life.”
Health Minister Fred Horne said the decision wasn’t politically motivated.
“We want to make decisions that reflect all Alberta and this is simply the right thing to do.”
Horne said the new program will fund up to 25 patients each year. A program administrator has yet to determine if the province will reimburse people who paid for the surgery themselves in the past three years.
Dr. Lorne Warneke, one of the few Alberta psychiatrists who does surgical referrals for transgender people, says he knows of three or four people who paid for their own operations.
“This is a big thing,” said Warneke, who works at the Gender Clinic at the Grey Nuns Hospital, where he receives four or five referrals every week and recently counted 145 people waiting to get an appointment. “I”m absolutely delighted.”
Jamie-Lynn Garvin, 51, said she always knew the funding would come back, though she thought it might take a decade. Garvin told her powerful story to the public through the Journal for the first time after the funding was cut, explaining how she had lived as a woman for two years and had never told her co-workers at a major retail outlet she had previously lived as a man. At that time, Garvin had gone through several divorces and had lost contact with three of her five children.
Because the government had approved her funding, Garvin’s 2009 surgery was paid for.
“My life is 100 million times better,” she said. “It hasn’t solved all my personal issues, and I never thought it would. But I feel good about who I am. I am no longer angry and upset about the whole world.”
And she now speaks with all her children, including one serving in the U.S. army.
Wells said the government’s change of heart follows years of despair and discouragement for those struggling with gender identity. The transgender community has high rates of suicide, depression, drug and alcohol abuse because of lack of understanding.
“Today is a day to celebrate human dignity and respect in its most basic forms: the right to health, the right to life,” Wells said. “I hope Premier Redford, when she takes the stage on Saturday (following Edmonton’s Pride Parade), will join us in celebrating this monumental news and huge historical step forward on the road to equality and human rights in the province.”
He said the message is not just for the transgendered, gay, lesbian, bisexual and queer community.
“This is a message to every Albertan about the potential and future of this province and a courageous step forward under Alison Redford’s leadership,” Wells said. “I’m sure nobody would ever have imagined a Conservative government taking these steps. Previously, every right that was gained by the (lesbian, gay, transgender and bisexual) community was gained through the courts. It wasn’t gained through the legislature and I think this is setting a new historical precedent of a government that wants to actively work with the LGBT community rather than against it.”
Wells said the restored funding will likely clear a backlog of related complaints with the Alberta Human Rights Commission.
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Of course, Danielle Smith of the Wildrose has already declared opposition to this. Ugh.