Students at Brown University who decide they want to change genders will now be covered under the schoolâs generous student health insurance plan. Beginning in August, Brownâs student health insurance plan will pay for more than a dozen different sexual reassignment surgery procedures, including scrotoplasty, labiaplasty, clitoroplasty and placement of testicular prostheses, reports The Brown Daily Herald. The plan as currently configured will cover only students, not staff. âWe identified this as an important benefit for students to have access to,â Director of Insurance and Purchasing Services Jeanne Hebert wrote in an email to the schoolâs student newspaper. She added that the new health care benefit is part of a broader effort âto support all studentsâ at Brown. The total cost for a single sexual reassignment surgery, including hormone therapy and various other physical alterations, can be as much as $50,000. The newly-covered sexual reassignment procedures are âvery standard and very comprehensive,â Kelly Garrett, Brownâs LGBTQ Center coordinator, told The Herald. The LGBTQ Center does not keep any sort of statistics on the number of transgender students at Brown, or the number who would like to change their sexual characteristics. Nevertheless, Garrett said, the LGBTQ Center has promoted the added health care coverage for many years, on the theory that the high costs of sex changes have prevented transgender students from seeking surgeries and hormone treatments. âI know people where itâs taken them 10 years because they needed to save money,â she professed to The Herald. Doctors sometimes deem sex assignment medically necessary, but most insurance plans donât cover the procedures and most prospective patients canât afford them, notes The Herald. As a result, said Garrett, transgender people could âface discriminationâ as a result of their gender identity. First-year Brown student Noah Lupica, who is currently morphing into a male, praised the new policy. âLike with anything, it depends on the person, but the fact that Brown is now offering these surgeries is life-saving for them,â Lupica told The Herald, adding that Brownâs insurance will meet all his sex change specifications. http://dailycaller.com/2013/02/07/brown-universitys-student-health-plan-will-cover-sex-changes/