I frequently read right wingers claim 'let them die'. Especially for something like diabetes or liver failure basing their bloodlust on the misconception that over eating or over drinking caused those maladies. And we as progressives chide them for it, if not become appalled at their callousness.
So I'm more than a little alarmed that a post like this is not only not HRed but uprated.
I did not choose to be Transgender. As a matter of fact I was tortured as a child in an effort to get me to conform to the social roles my genitalia determined. As an adult I would dream of being able to go into the bathtub with dental floss and an exacto knife and fixing my chest myself. So understand the angst that being Transgender in a hostile society entails.
"They don’t see it as self-mutilating. They feel like they’re righting a wrong, correcting themselves," Kohler said. "This is a true issue for people, yet it's just so easily ignored and dismissed. Denying it is like saying: I don't believe in diabetes."
WASHINGTON (NBC) - Self-castration, suicide and waves of desperation are byproducts of the denial of sex hormones to inmates yearning to switch genders, advocates say.
But outside the walls, debate has been stirred on whether the prison system is the right place to help chemically escort a man to womanhood, or vice versa, and critics question if any taxpayer money should pay for the hormones used to help inmates undergo sex changes.
So why do Transgender inmates get singled out for extra punishment? I mince no words, denial of transition related care while incarcerated is extra punishment. No matter the crime, inhumane treatment should never be allowed. But in the case for Transgender inmates their entire experience is designed to demean and dehumanize them. From being placed in the wrong gendered population to not being able to access medical care that every legitimate medical and psychological body has recognized.
Don't tell me you are trying to understand while vociferously denying our medical needs.
Because when you claim offense at Chelsea Manning getting hormones you are also saying that I because I get state funded health care also should still have to pay out of pocket for needed hormones