trans | Annoying/infuriating news re healthcare reform (USA)..... (Reply)

Just in via headline-sampler in my Yahell Mail...

Conservatives shop sex ops ban to GOP

The federal government would be banned from funding sex change operations and other services for transgender individuals if social conservative activists get their way.

There’s no sponsor yet for an amendment to the health care overhaul – and it may remain in the dustbin of unrealized wedge issues – but culture warriors are shopping the proposal to Republican senators. (Full article at Politico.com)

Obviously, it can't just be assumed that healthcare reform is going to be automatically inclusive of everyone who's heretofore been marginalized by the system -- political/rhetorical pressure needs to be applied by us, because it's imminently being applied against us, on the same "social values" grounds as the pressure already being exerted to ban any governmental funding of abortions via public healthcare option (I recall the topic coming up earlier here, but it wasn't necessarily seen as related to trans issues then, even though they are naturally lumped together by social conservatives). Politicians need a good kick in the arse from their trans constituents and everyone else who cares about actual social equality, before this evasion has any chance to get slipped in and undermine any real healthcare reform.