Help me get my top surgery

Imagine, for a moment, a disease that affects 1 in 10,000 people. That is a fairly common disorder; about the same number of people that are affected by glaucoma or deafness, and three times more frequent than brain cancer. Add to that image a mortality rate of 41%. That’s a pretty serious disease, isn’t it?

Let’s add a bit to that picture. The treatment for this health problem is not terribly expensive, nor difficult. It requires some common, inexpensive drugs. It also requires some surgery, in the price range of $12,000. None of this treatment is particularly unmanageable or experimental, though as with any medical procedure, research would no doubt find room for improvement, and it does take a certain level of specialization.

What would you say if you found out that there is no insurance coverage for the treatment of this common, deadly disorder? And despite the fact that you may pay thousands of dollars per year for your insurance coverage, if you or a loved one had it, not a single dime will go toward the payment of life saving treatment.

That disorder exists. It’s called Gender Identity Disorder, and though we don’t know the cause of it, we do know how to help people with it. Through the use of hormones such as estrogen and testosterone, and surgery to help people’s bodies reflect their self-identity, we can not only vastly improve someone’s health and quality of life, we can also save their lives. Untreated gender identity disorder is associated with high suicide rates, and very high levels of substance abuse, as people try to self-medicate their pain.

The argument that transgenderism is “just” a boy who likes girls’ clothing or a tomboy gone too far is like calling a melanoma “just” a skin blemish. Gender identity disorder is serious, often deadly, and levies an awful toll on both the individual and society.

With the combination of hormones and surgery, medical doctors can create an internal and external state where one’s body more closely parallels one’s gender self-identity. No, it’s not a perfect answer; few medical responses to chronic conditions are perfect. Nor is surgery the right answer for all transgender people. But for many, the surgical answer is literally life-saving.

In NZ, the very few surgeons that provide this treatment (2 or 3 Doctors..) range from 12 to 20k .... ALL help is welcome <3