Cynthia Simmons tried hormonal treatment, but once her insurance company found out, it immediately stopped paying the bills.
The treatment bills her insurance had covered provided Simmons, a transgender person trying to become female, the hormonal treatment that she couldn't otherwise afford, and she's not alone, she said.
"It's considered elective surgery," Simmons said. "There are only two places I know of where you can get surgery handled by insurance."
Simmons said these two places are New York and San Francisco.
Most insurance companies classify the surgery as "cosmetic" and will not pay for it, said Larry Ross, a licensed professional counselor at the McDowell Behavioral Healthcare Center.
Tristan Booth, an ASU doctoral student and transsexual person, said that very few transgender people get insurance to cover surgeries, and some have trouble getting insured at all. Representatives from BlueCross, BlueShield and United Health Care did not return calls by press time.
"It should also be noted that a number of appointments with a psychologist are required in order to receive referral letters to present to doctors and surgeons in order to receive hormones and surgeries," Booth said.
Many transgender people have to find other ways of paying for the tab, which, Simmons said, can go as high as $180,000.
Simmons said they often turn to prostitution or appearing in pornographic movies to pay for the surgeries.
Some insurance companies will refuse blood testing, hormones and psychologist appointments if they know that these procedures will be part of transsexual-related medical treatments, Booth said.
Booth works as a facilitator at the SafeZONE workshops, which have been running at the Downtown Campus. The workshops will be held Downtown at select times through May.
The class details some of the finer points of the transgender community and provides participants with a SafeZONE placard that they can post in their work areas, alerting transgender community members that they can be, ostensibly, as open as they want.
According to the Gay Lesbian Bisexual Transgender and Queer Web site, "transsexuality" is a recognized medical condition, yet federal laws don't cover transsexuals under the disabilities act.
"What you end up with very often is a marginalized population - many of whom have difficulty finding and keeping jobs because they are known to be transsexual or because they appear too androgynous for some employers, having to pay thousands of dollars in expenses that non-transsexual people never have to pay," Booth said.
Booth said the transgender community has "radically different elements" and that not everyone therein experience things the same since there are so many types of transgender people.
"For the most part, the way I live is not much different than that of non-trans people," Booth said. "The exceptions are primarily financial and legal."
Simmons said her transition from male to female can be a dangerous path and that the mortality rate for people like her is high.
That's one reason Simmons has been trying to get "that little M," indicating male, the sex she was born with, to an 'F' for female, but when the insurance company quickly shut off money to supply her with hormonal treatments, she had to keep it.
Reach the reporter at: marc.young@asu.edu.
