A 33-year-old Ontario man wants the best of both worlds — a vagina and a penis — and he wants the public to pay for it, with the courts making the decision who foots the bill. The debate over whether the Ontario Health Insurance Plan (OHIP) will cover the man’s elective surgery comes as Canadians nation-wide face long wait times in emergency rooms and for standard but necessary surgeries and diagnostic tests. The legal battle surrounds not the fact that taxpayers are compelled to pay for the surgery of a man who wants to change his penis into a vagina, but that he wants to acquire the undercarriage of a woman, while retaining that of a man at the same time. “He’s double-dipping,” said one clever wag in the Western Standard newsroom. The man, listed as “K.S.” in court documents, per the National Post, identifies as “non-binary.” The term means “a person whose gender identity does not align with a binary understanding of gender such as man or woman” according to the Government of Canada. If the man’s case is successful and Ontario taxpayers fund his surgery, it would set a precedent for other such costly “gender affirming” surgeries. Critics point out these kinds of surgeries are excessive and experimental at best, and butchery and mutilation at worst, as claims Canadian psychologist Dr. Jordan Peterson. A study published in Environmental Progress journal, called The WPATH Files: Pseudoscientific Surgical and Hormonal Experiments on Children, Adolescents, and Vulnerable Adults, states these experiments have “gone off the rails” and called transgender surgery “consumer-driven gender embodiment.”Pamela Buffone, founder of the parents’ group Canadian Gender Report, pointed out the Ontario healthcare system is at “a breaking point” and should be allocating resources to medically necessary interventions. “Our public health-care system is at the breaking point and really needs to focus on procedures that are medically necessary,” said Buffone, according to the National Post. “Is this type of surgery health care? The patient will not be physically healthier because of the operation, which is likely to result in complications and the need for corrective surgeries and further demands on the health system.”Meanwhile, the province’s queer community groups argue the surgeries increase people’s quality of life and reduce stress and current policy is “exclusionary” towards trans and non-binary people. “Ultimately OHIP’s interpretation (of a vaginoplasty) is exclusionary and discriminates against nonbinary people on the basis of their gender identity,” a spokesperson from Egale Canada, which describes itself as the country’s “leading organization for (sexual minority) people and issues,” told the publication, adding ambiguity in the existing legislation should fall in favour of the claimant. Court documents show K.S.'s attorney argued “to ignore ‘the other third’" of K.S. "would be invalidating," while OHIP said a vaginoplasty without penectomy (removal of the penis) is not listed as one of its benefits, and it is an experimental surgery. Ontario’s Superior Court of Justice heard the case in late February and K.S.'s lawyer, John McIntyre, said it could still be months until a verdict is issued.
A 33-year-old Ontario man wants the best of both worlds — a vagina and a penis — and he wants the public to pay for it, with the courts making the decision who foots the bill. The debate over whether the Ontario Health Insurance Plan (OHIP) will cover the man’s elective surgery comes as Canadians nation-wide face long wait times in emergency rooms and for standard but necessary surgeries and diagnostic tests. The legal battle surrounds not the fact that taxpayers are compelled to pay for the surgery of a man who wants to change his penis into a vagina, but that he wants to acquire the undercarriage of a woman, while retaining that of a man at the same time. “He’s double-dipping,” said one clever wag in the Western Standard newsroom. The man, listed as “K.S.” in court documents, per the National Post, identifies as “non-binary.” The term means “a person whose gender identity does not align with a binary understanding of gender such as man or woman” according to the Government of Canada. If the man’s case is successful and Ontario taxpayers fund his surgery, it would set a precedent for other such costly “gender affirming” surgeries. Critics point out these kinds of surgeries are excessive and experimental at best, and butchery and mutilation at worst, as claims Canadian psychologist Dr. Jordan Peterson. A study published in Environmental Progress journal, called The WPATH Files: Pseudoscientific Surgical and Hormonal Experiments on Children, Adolescents, and Vulnerable Adults, states these experiments have “gone off the rails” and called transgender surgery “consumer-driven gender embodiment.”Pamela Buffone, founder of the parents’ group Canadian Gender Report, pointed out the Ontario healthcare system is at “a breaking point” and should be allocating resources to medically necessary interventions. “Our public health-care system is at the breaking point and really needs to focus on procedures that are medically necessary,” said Buffone, according to the National Post. “Is this type of surgery health care? The patient will not be physically healthier because of the operation, which is likely to result in complications and the need for corrective surgeries and further demands on the health system.”Meanwhile, the province’s queer community groups argue the surgeries increase people’s quality of life and reduce stress and current policy is “exclusionary” towards trans and non-binary people. “Ultimately OHIP’s interpretation (of a vaginoplasty) is exclusionary and discriminates against nonbinary people on the basis of their gender identity,” a spokesperson from Egale Canada, which describes itself as the country’s “leading organization for (sexual minority) people and issues,” told the publication, adding ambiguity in the existing legislation should fall in favour of the claimant. Court documents show K.S.'s attorney argued “to ignore ‘the other third’" of K.S. "would be invalidating," while OHIP said a vaginoplasty without penectomy (removal of the penis) is not listed as one of its benefits, and it is an experimental surgery. Ontario’s Superior Court of Justice heard the case in late February and K.S.'s lawyer, John McIntyre, said it could still be months until a verdict is issued.
