insurance

Why is gender affirming care so expensive?

I’ve written quite a bit about the costs that I have incurred along my journey of trying to inhabit a trans body. But even as I look forward to the upcoming revision surgery on my vulva, it is a harsh awakening to realize that I am going to have to spend yet another $6,000+ for housing simply because Seattle has no transgender vaginoplasty surgeons and most insurance refuses to pay for out of state surgery costs.

So how much have I paid out of pocket so far for gender affirming care?

  • $5,000+ for electrolysis and laser hair removal on my face and body (not considered “essential” by insurance)
  • $9,500 in travel costs for consults, surgical recovery housing, and post-op appointments
  • $6,000+ for housing for revision surgery recovery

All told, I can account for over $20,000 in costs that insurance refused to cover.

I am one of the lucky ones. I am privileged enough to have a good job with decent health insurance so my co-pays are minor and I can afford to save up for these procedures. And I have a large network of friends who have generously donated over $5,000 towards those costs.

But can we talk about why these costs exist in the first place? Why is it considered ok for transfeminine people to have to pay for face and body hair removal to deal with dysphoria? In a world that demands that we “pass” as women to use public facilities such as restrooms, that is incredibly classist and discriminatory. And why does insurance not have to pay for the costs of getting an out of town surgery when there are no local surgeons available? My insurance now pays for cancer patients to get out of town specialty care but despite my advocacy for the past several years, continues to deny trans people that same right.

Luckily, starting in 2022, insurers in Washington State are now going to be required to pay for all doctor-prescribed gender affirming treatments and will no longer be allowed to label them as “cosmetic”. This is thanks to the tireless work of many many advocates and organizations who fought for years against insurance denials. And I hear through the trans rumor grapevine that Seattle may FINALLY be getting a surgeon soon who can perform vaginoplasties locally. But while that helps people here in Seattle, that doesn’t change the fact that far too many trans people around the US aren’t given equal healthcare access. We need laws in place federally to mandate coverage of gender-affirming care.

So next time you think of asking someone if they have had “the surgery” or make any kinds of assumptions about what trans people should look like, think about how expensive it is to look like I do. How inaccessible it is to the vast majority of trans people in this country to achieve what Laverne Cox, Caitlyn Jenner, and Elliot Page have done. And if you have resources, I encourage you to donate generously to your local trans fundraisers and places like the Jim Collins Foundation to help more trans people get the care we so desperately need.

Insurance approval

I know to most cisgender people this doesn’t sound significant but I just got word from my surgeon’s office today that I got insurance approval for gender confirmation surgery!

This is one of those things that should be a normal occurrence. But for trans people, we have had to fight so hard for generations to get these surgeries covered by insurance that it is still a big deal for us to have these basic rights. I remember not that long ago when my friends were going to Thailand because that’s the only way most people could afford to get surgery out of pocket. And because of that legacy, there are still so few surgeons in the US that even those of us in major cities like Seattle have to travel out of state and incur huge expenses to get these surgeries.

It’s also significant because of the amount of medical gatekeeping we have to endure to get there. I can’t think of a single procedure where a cis person has to get more than one letter of support. But most trans people require 3 letters from MDs, therapists, and PhD level psychiatrists to get this insurance approval.

For me, I got these letter last fall because I was told the surgeon was going to ask for insurance approval in late winter. But they waited too long to submit paperwork so I had to go get the letter updated because they needed to be within 6 months. Which meant that the first time around I got an insurance denial which was scary even though I knew why.

The point of this story is, if you have the authority to be a medical gatekeeper for a trans person, PLEASE make it as smooth as possible for them. There are a variety of reasons that trans people don’t want surgeries and shouldn’t need them to transition. But for those of us who do, we are usually overwhelmingly sure that this is what we want. So don’t make it harder for us than it needs to be. Trust us to be the experts on our own experiences. And if you get asked for a perfunctory piece of paper, just sign it.