Petition Calls for V.A. to End Ban On Transition Surgeries

[Carolyn Marie]

http://time.com/4324586/transgender-veterans-affairs-surgery-petition/

Carolyn Marie

[Guest LesleyAnne]

If I could find that petition I'd sign it.

Sadly though, even if McDonald agreed it's still got to go before congress, and with Republicans in charge fo-geta-bout-it!

To Republicans that's just another entitlement program with no science (they'll claim) behind the need.

As long as we have a "Just say NO" Congress we are toast!

[Carolyn Marie]

I think you're right, LesleyAnne. It had been my understanding that the prohibition on TG surgery was a Congressional mandate, written into their funding bill. But the article doesn't mention that, I;m not sure why. Of course, I could be wrong about that, too.

Carolyn Marie

[Ravin]

OTOH, after the experience my sister recently had with having her gall bladder out (they did it old-school rather than orthoscopically, which is the standard in the rest of the medical community), I'm not so sure I'd want the VA operating on my junk.

[Guest LesleyAnne]

That's a good point Ravin,

However when one is desperate, and broke.....

Also the VA calls in experts when they don''t have a resident doctor that knows how to do the surgery in question.

I have severe double vision mostly corrected by prisms in my glasses. There is a surgery that corrects it but it takes a specialist that can do that kind of surgery. It entails cutting all 6 of the muscles loose from each eyeball and reattaching them to correct the crossed vision. It takes precise surgery only done by a very few. I chickened out (I've only got two eyes) and live with the prisms.

So I'm sure that if we should ever be so lucky as to have a liberal congress that would allow this entitlement to be bestowed upon us lowly veterans, then they would have to call in the big guns to do the surgery.

I'm hoping I live that long