HB 2002 mandates $$ for transition surgery (excludes detransition)

By Oregon State Representative Ed Diehl, 

I received confirmation this week from Legislative Legal Council that House Bill 2002 specifically EXCLUDES DETRANSITION TREATMENTS from insurance coverage. With this bill, Medicaid and private insurance are mandated to cover treatments when your “gender identity” and sex don’t align. But, if you believe you have made a mistake and want a procedure to align with your sex, coverage will not be mandated. The wording in the bill is intentional.

I proposed a -11 amendment to the base bill, adding coverage for detransition treatments, and it was flatly rejected by the Democrats. Why? Doesn’t this seem like the compassionate thing to do? We know we are harming some children and young adults with these treatments; shouldn’t we offer them the opportunity to correct the mistakes made by the medical professionals?

The best studies we have today show 7% to 30% of people who have transitioned will detransition within about 10 years. This is enough for the UK, Sweden, Norway, and several other European countries to put the brakes on “gender-affirming treatment and limit it to clinical settings or ban it outright for minors.

In Oregon, however, we are full steam ahead, ignoring these evidence-based studies and the European response. We are expanding access. We are told that gender identity is immutable; it simply ‘is’, without the choice or possibility of change. It is based upon one’s internal sense of self. And the professionals know exactly how to determine if someone was “born in the wrong body”, even in the case of children and adolescents.

SO HERE IS THE CRUX OF THE ISSUE: To detransition is to demonstrate that gender identity is not immutable. By including detransition treatment coverage in the bill, the true believers would be acknowledging that detransition is real, that some children and young adults are being harmed, and that the professionals can be wrong. And that is something they simply cannot admit.

 If detransition is real, the whole “gender identity” house of cards collapses.There are additional problems with this bill, including a denial of parental rights. 

We must urge our legislators to vote NO, or at least push the bill back to committee and fix it!