You clearly do not know what BDD is because wanting breast augmentation for purely cosmetic reason falls exactly under that and the point I have made multiple time that you have ignored is not that people should be legally disallowed to mutilate their bodies, but that surgery for cosmetic reasons is not something that should be burdened by the health care system as a "treatment" when it is not. You have the freedom to do that if you so choose you however do not have the freedom to demand that it is accepted as a treatment or that you be perceived as a woman when you objectively are not and the only perception that you are is from a mind faced with a disorder, Just as schizoid people cannot demand to be treated as 2 people because their mind tells them they are it's pandering to delusion.
As pointed out by your example breast augmentation is an elective process done for cosmetic body image reasons and not done to help cure or treat any underlying mental health issues. If some woman wants bigger tits but can't afford it that is no one else's responsibility to provide that for them the same can be said of transitions.
also great job using wiki as a source
Yeah there were a few reasons I didn't like the implant comparison. We should decide what we're discussing though. If you want to talk health care systems that's cool with me. Takes us to the same place anyway.
So I dunno where you live, but here in the US these surgical procedures are not in any way covered by the government, and are almost never covered by private insurance plans. Usually they are specifically excluded. What they do cover is visits with therapists, psychiatrists and endocrinologists, and usually the medications themselves. That's to be expected though, unless you want more government oversight in these things in order to bar people from seeing specialists for certain things. Seems like a bad idea though, and trans folk seeing an endo twice a year isn't a huge drain on taxpayers or insurance companies or whatever. Estrogen is easy to come by and dirt cheap.
Surgeries. Decidedly not covered most of the time here, but hopefully will be someday. Why would they be covered? They would need to be deemed "medically necessary". Why would they be considered medically necessary? Because this isn't mental illness, and many people could not live without it. It's likely that quite a few people would commit suicide if it turned out they wouldn't be able to undergo this operation. And there are hoops to jump through to try to ensure they won't regret the decision.
Signatures from 2 mental health professionals, one being a PhD. 12 months prior psychological therapy/evaluation, 12 months of being on hormones, 12 months of living as the preferred gender.
Anyway, we're back to the whole mental illness vs. real thing discussion. Most modern psychologists, including the APA, are with me. Nothing's set in stone though, and we really don't know the cause of transsexualism. There are some solid theories backed by biological evidence, but we're in the beginning stages of exploring this vastly complex topic. To be absolutely and staunchly sure one way or another is kind of jumping the gun a little. Some people regret the surgery, and some feel as though it saved their lives.
So idk. It's fine if you don't think this is a "medical necessity" and would prefer it not be covered by insurance companies and the like. To me that seems kind of petty, especially considering that with so few trans people around it wouldn't really raise costs very much. Like what's it to you if you're helping to pay for these surgeries? They're helping you cover your costs, and people insistent on living unhealthy lifestyles are the real expenses here. To pick and choose the benefits you're comfortable with other people having is lame. You don't know what this experience is like, and you probably only see it as portrayed in the media and on the internet with people like me. Deciding from so far away that their medical issues shouldn't be covered is... guess I'm just repeating myself. It's especially sad when the medical professionals who study these things push for the costs to be covered and are met with ignorant backlash.
What's wrong with wiki? We're having a friendly discussion on a messageboard, this isn't an academic paper. And that link was actually in support of an argument you made, I just thought it was interesting.
