I recently came across the PGN Street Talk question, “Should inmates be entitled to gender-reassignment surgery?” (Oct. 5-11), and I was dismayed by the answers. I agree that having taxpayers pay for the surgery at this point in history would turn even more people against the trans community. However, I think those asked (and possibly the majority of the non-trans population) don’t quite understand the severity of this condition.
Being trans may not be life threatening in the way a horror like cancer is, but people do die from it. Forty-one percent* of trans people attempt suicide. Compare that to 1.6 percent for all Americans. This doesn’t address the quieter ways to commit suicide. More than a quarter of trans people have misused drugs or alcohol (compared with 1.7 percent and 7.3 nationally), while more than 30-percent smoke (10-percent higher than average).
All of these numbers are so high for a reason: Trans people are dealing with a condition that causes severe and relentless mental anguish. Being trans doesn’t kill in a way that cancer or something else as insidious does; it kills by ravaging a person’s thoughts, emotions and psyche. And the biggest crime here is that the overwhelming number of insurance companies cover no part of dealing with this congenital condition. People are suffering, yet nothing is being done.
Whether or not an inmate should be entitled to gender-reassignment surgery should be a moot point. All trans people should be entitled to gender-reassignment surgery. If this was already incorporated into everyday health care, there would be much less of an outrage about an inmate receiving this type of care because, agree or not, prisoners should be entitled to health care for any condition that’s causing them to unduly suffer. S. Pisarek Philadelphia
*National Transgender Discrimination Survey Report on Health and Health Care