LOL, this story just keeps getting funnier and funnier. Sandra Fluke, Gender Reassignment, and Health Insurance Stephen Gutowski Monday, March 5, 2012 - 7:35pm Sandra Fluke is being sold by the left as something she's not. Namely a random co-ed from Georgetown law who found herself mixed up in the latest front of the culture war who was simply looking to make sure needy women had access to birth control. That, of course, is not the case. As many have already uncovered Sandra Fluke she is, in reality, a 30 year old long time liberal activist who enrolled at Georgetown with the express purpose of fighting for the school to pay for students' birth control. She has been pushing for mandated coverage of contraceptives at Georgetown for at least three years according to the Washington Post. However, as I discovered today, birth control is not all that Ms. Fluke believes private health insurance must cover. She also, apparently, believes that it is discrimination deserving of legal action if "gender reassignment" surgeries are not covered by employer provided health insurance. She makes these views clear in an article she co-edited with Karen Hu in the Georgetown Journal of Gender and the Law. The title of the article, which can be purchased in full here, is Employment Discrimination Against LGBTQ Persons and was published in the Journal's 2011 Annual Review. I have posted a transcript of the section I will be quoting from here. In a subsection of the article entitled "Employment Discrimination in Provision of Employment Benefits" starting on page 635 of the review Sandra Fluke and her co-editor describe two forms of discrimination in benefits they believe LGBTQ individuals face in the work place: "Discrimination typically takes two forms: first, direct discrimination limiting access to benefits specifically needed by LGBTQ persons, and secondly, the unavailability of family-related benefits to LGBTQ families." Their "prime example" of the first form of discrimination? Not covering sex change operations: "A prime example of direct discrimination is denying insurance coverage for medical needs of transgender persons physically transitioning to the other gender." This so called "prime example" of discrimination is expounded on in a subsection titled "Gender Reassignment Medical Services" starting on page 636: "Transgender persons wishing to undergo the gender reassignment process frequently face heterosexist employer health insurance policies that label the surgery as cosmetic or medically unnecessary and therefore uncovered." To be clear, the argument here is that employers are engaging in discrimination against their employees who want them to pay for their sex changes because their "heterosexist" health insurance policies don't believe sex changes are medically necessary. Additionally Sandra Fluke and her co-editor have an answer for why exactly these "heterosexist" insurance policies, and the courts that side with them, deem sex changes as medically unnecessary: "In Mario v. P & C Food Markets, Inc., an employee who was denied such coverage brought claims under the federal Employee Retirement Income Security (ERISA) and Title VII. The court rejected the ERISA claim, finding the plaintiff's mastectomy and hormone therapy were not medically necessary. The court's ruling was based upon controversy within the medical community regarding that treatment plan. Much of that controversy has been linked to ignorance and bias against transgender persons, and the American Medical Association has declared the lack of coverage to be discrimination." You see, all opposition to the determination that sex changes are medically necessary, and therefor must be covered by private employer provided health insurance, is based on "ignorance and bias against transgender persons". The section on discrimination against those seeking gender reassignment ends with Sandra Fluke and her co-editor wondering why more lawsuits aren't filed against private employers on these grounds. Especially in comparison to the frequency with which these types of cases are filed against Medicare, Medicaid, and even the prison system: "The reason for this lack of cases is unclear. Private employee insurance plans do not more frequently cover this need, so it may be a sign that transgender employees do not see the courts as likely to provide any assistance against private employers." The argument made in this article edited by Sandra Fluke and Karen Hu is quite clear. "Gender reassignment" is a medically necessary set of procedures that must be covered under employee provided health insurance policies. If it is not covered by those policies that is tantamount to discrimination and legal action should be taken against the employer. So, as you can see, Sandra Fluke is not what she is being sold as. Instead she is a liberal activist pushing some rather radical ideas. Keep that in mind as the left holds her up in the spotlight.
The day I have to subsidize some freaks genital mutilation because they grew up without love from mommy or daddy is the day I say good fucking bye to the USA.
Thats where its going, slowly but surely.... Do you think that thirty years ago it would have been considered a "war on women" if you didnt want to pay for someone elses birth control? People probably would have thought you were fucking crazy if you said something like that.
Do you actually believe gender identification has to do with upbringing? An unfortunate upbringing can result in a lot of different neuroses, but that has nothing to do with gender identification in the same way it has nothing to do with orientation. At least endeavor to have a clue.
I claim no desire to truly understand why a person would want their genitals surgically removed. It is outside the scope of "give a fuck" in my world where a born woman has a vagina and a born man has a penis. Whatever the reason...the person has issues that a scalpel wont fix.
Sorry, but against the backdrop of your comment, it is your issues that a scalpel won't fix. You may not like the issue facing such people and you may not care about them, and I agree that it is not a particularly appetizing topic, but if you are going to say anything at all about the matter I urge you for the second time to at least find a clue. These are real people with real lives whom you wish to marginalize for no other reason than because it repulses you. The question shoud be: why would you be repulsed by someone who genuinely believes to have been born in the wrong body and who wishes to correct the matter. It should not be too hard to grasp conceptually, in much the same way that some people are born with other, more visible anomalies. If you have ever summoned an inkling of empathy, try to muster up some now and imagine the ordeal. As a bonus, it'll make you a better person.
What a bunch of bullshit. Do you know any gays. Do you know an lesbians. That is P.C. crap which has nothing to do with reality for many gays. In college I had a girlfriend who became the ultimate fag hag, and I was still friends with her. She was very pretty. She lived in a lesbian house. Some of the pretty lesbians I spoke had been abused or raped or molested by men. Some by family members. I understood it was a pretty common for lesbians. I also know that molestation happened to a few gay guys. One guy even told me he was attracted to men because of the power they had in sexual situations. I did not know many gay guys well enough to talk about that... but the ratio was 2 for 2.