A ‘Right’ to Laser Hair Removal?
Posted on | January 31, 2019 | 1 Comment
‘Jessica’ is demanding taxpayer-funded treatment.
If health care becomes a “human right,” guess what becomes health care?
A transgender woman [in England] said she is regularly reduced to tears because the NHS [Britain’s National Health Service] is keeping her waiting for laser hair removal surgery.
Jessica Samson, 39, has to shave twice a day while she continues her more than six month wait for the permanent procedure.
She was approved for the treatment in July as the final stage of her gender reassignment but progress is slow, she said.
The NHS needs to ‘realise they are mucking around with people’s lives’, according to the frustrated IT customer service worker.
After a complaint in December, Miss Sampson has now been offered a consultation appointment but worries her case is the ‘tip of the iceberg’.
The NHS has faced criticism in the past for the range of service it offers transgender people, and recent growth in demand has piled pressure on clinics.
Miss Sampson claims she has had to endure months of frustration as she has emailed various NHS departments to try and get the process moving.
‘As it stands, something that should’ve taken two months is currently taking six,’ she said. ‘And there is absolutely no sign of it making any further progress.
‘It is difficult to explain why this is a big issue to anyone who hasn’t had trans-thoughts, but I’ve been on hormones long enough for my body to start changing.
‘But I still grow a beard every day and I have to shave twice a day to maintain some sort of normal lifestyle.’
(What do you consider a “normal lifestyle”? Never mind . . .)
Formerly a man, Miss Sampson, from Salisbury, is trying to get the surgery in her home city through a commissioning team in Bristol.
She said her letters went unanswered for months and, after five months of waiting without an update, she filed a formal complaint against the health service.
‘I’ve had my head in my hands crying so many times about this,’ she said. . . .
In the NHS’s own guidance it says facial hair removal is an ‘essential part of gender reassignment’ and should be one of the first stages of the process. . . .
Dr James Palmer said the NHS may provide facial hair removal, breast reduction, and even reverse gender reassignment surgeries.
There has been an ‘explosion’ in the number of children seeking a sex swap, Dr Palmer said, which may accelerate if plans to expand publicly funded operations go ahead.
Dr Palmer told the Westminster Social Policy Forum that referrals for gender dysphoria have increased by around 240 per cent over the last five year period.
(Hat-tip: Kirby McCain on Twitter.) If health care is a “human right” — which is a central claim of Kamala Harris’s presidential campaign — and sex-change treatment is health care, how long before American taxpayers are required to foot the bill for laser hair removal?
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One Response to “A ‘Right’ to Laser Hair Removal?”
February 3rd, 2019 @ 3:36 pm
[…] A “Right” to Laser Hair Removal? If health care becomes a “human right,” guess what becomes health care? […]