House Bill 1309: Gender equity requires hair-affirming health care By Jon Caldara
I have never shared this publicly, only with select friends and health care professionals. It is exceedingly personal and frankly awkward. But I know others have the same challenge. For them I share my story. I was born in the wrong body. I identify differently than what my body outwardly expresses. The world wrongly sees me as follically-challenged. I’ll use the modern vulgarism; hateful people call me, “bald.” I didn’t ask to be this way. God put me in the wrong body. And I demand you pay to make me look as I identify. You see, I identify as a man with wild, glorious, flowing locks of Fabio-like hair. I have the hair of 1970s rock-stars like Roger Daltrey and Robert Plant. That’s who I really am, even if you can’t see past my scalp. I identify as haired. I mean, downright shaggy. You will accept me as such. The Colorado legislature and Gov. Jared Polis have taken a brave and enlightened step to give those of us who are trans-haired the right to hair-affirming health care with the passage of House Bill 1309, assuming we only identify as a different gender. This new law forces insurance companies to pay (by jacking your insurance rates) for a whole slew of “gender affirming health care,” ranging from mental and psychiatric services to just about any cosmetic surgery you could imagine. It specifically lists (you might need a dictionary for a few of these, but you should read them all): “hormone therapy; blepharoplasty, eye and lid; face, forehead or neck skin tightening; facial bone remodeling; genioplasty; rhytidectomy for the cheeks, chin or neck; cheek, chin or nose implants; lip lift or augmentation; mandibular angle augmentation, creation or reduction; orbital recontouring; rhinoplasty; laser or electrolysis hair removal; breast or chest augmentation, reduction or construction; and genital and non-genital surgical procedures.” Don’t “genital and non-genital surgical procedures” mean all surgical procedures, or is that my hateful semantic logic again? Elbow surgery is a “non-genital surgical procedure” after all. Let’s remember the progressive left is consumed with social justice and equality, fairness dished out at gunpoint. Yet, this law runs completely against any sense of gender equity or fairness. Among the 532 reasons I’m glad I’m not a woman is that I feel no desire to remove every follicle from my body except my flowing locks and eyebrows. Cisgender women must still pay for their own laser hair removal and electrolysis. But now a man who thinks he’s a woman gets the rest of us to pay to remove those pesky whiskers over a lady’s lip. And, though many of us argue it should be free as a matter of national security, women pay unholy amounts for boob-jobs to get the body with which they identify. A man who thinks he’s a woman now gets us to pay for it. Where’s the gender equity? A buddy of mine lost 150 pounds the stupid way, through hard exercise and diet. He looks like a deflated balloon and would love skin-tightening surgery. He can’t afford it. If he were transitioning into a woman, we’d have to buy it for him. Women enjoy the delight of having their bodies ripped apart and disfigured by the beauty of miraculous childbirth (and we men are very jealous). Afterward, if they no longer identify with their physical bodies, they can pay for genital reconstructive surgery, breast augmentation, skin tightening and a lifetime of psychiatric treatment to deal with giving life to little monsters who grow into teenagers who hate their parents. So why do trans women who will never know the angelic joy of childbearing get to have others pay for all these expenses while biological women who go through the horror show of childbirth don’t? If the hypocrisy isn’t plainly obvious let me spell it out: The transgendered movement is built on this idea that biological sex doesn’t matter, doesn’t exist. Yet this law is built on nothing but treating people differently based on what their biological chromosomes and genitals are. If these medical procedures were covered for all of us regardless of our genitals, most every man would be walking around with Elvis Presley’s mane and every woman would be built like Angelina Jolie. And our medical system would no longer exist. Every insurance company would stampede out of Colorado.
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