A feminist group is slamming a California policy that says insurance companies must fund the removal of healthy breasts on teenage girls.
State Insurance Commissioner Ricardo Lara wrote that double mastectomy is “male chest surgery” and under state law is considered to be a “reconstructive” procedure.
Lara wrote about it in December 2020:
TransFamily Support Services had contacted the state department after learning about several youth under 18 years old who are transitioning from female to male and were denied coverage for male chest surgery. After looking into the matter, the insurance department determined that denying coverage for mastectomy and reconstruction of a male chest based solely on age is impermissible under state laws requiring coverage of reconstructive surgery.
The department is now instructing health insurance companies that they must consider a patient’s specific clinical situation in determining medical necessity. According to the state agency, health insurance companies should evaluate their coverage criteria for gender dysphoria treatment and eliminate any noncompliant practices to avoid needlessly delaying and interfering with medical care recommended by a patient’s doctor.
“For far too long, individuals diagnosed with gender dysphoria have had to battle a host of challenges to get access to gender-affirming care in order to be their true selves,” stated Lara, a gay man who is a former state legislator from Los Angeles County. “Social stigma, misconceptions about gender dysphoria and its treatment, and outdated medical criteria create barriers to necessary medical care that can lead to tragic results for individuals with gender dysphoria, especially for our transgender youth.”
However, the Women’s Liberation Front (WoLF), a feminist organization that opposes efforts to harm women and women’s identity, wrote against the California policy, calling it “horrible news.”
“California dubs double mastectomies an appropriate transgender treatment for girls,” the group tweeted. “State health insurers may no longer deny coverage for girls of any age to undergo a double mastectomy.”
The Christian website the World also reported on it last year from the perspective of a woman who once struggled with accepting her biological sex:
As a child, Erin Brewer would have had her healthy breasts amputated if presented with the opportunity to fulfill her strong desire to be a boy. Instead, she said, a school psychologist helped her come to terms with her gender. Now, she is grateful to have nursed her three children.
Today’s gender-dysphoric girls in California might not be so fortunate. A Dec. 30 letter from the office of California Insurance Commissioner Ricardo Lara said state health insurers may no longer deny coverage for girls of any age to undergo a double mastectomy. The letter, addressed to San Diego transgender activist and mother Kathie Moehlig, redefines the surgery as “reconstructive” rather than cosmetic, labeling breasts “abnormal structures of the body caused by congenital defects.” Moehlig’s daughter, who now identifies as a male, had a double mastectomy at age 14.
“This is so heartbreaking to me,” Brewer, co-founder of Partners for Ethical Care, an advocacy group challenging this approach to helping children with gender dysphoria, said in the article.
Brewer said young girls “are now told they don’t have body dysmorphia, they have a congenital defect.”
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