From here.

There's some question as to whether a sex change operation is a good idea at all but I'm more interested in whether a sex change operation should be allowed to be written off of a changed person's taxes.

Question for debate:

Should a sex change operation be allowed to be written off of the taxes of a person who has under gone a sex change operation?

I don't know the USA's general stance on writing off medical expenses against tax.

In the UK, gender reassignment surgery is possible on the NHS - i.e. funded by the taxpayer in the first place - provided the patient undergoes a lot of counselling and psychiatric assessment over several years to make very sure indeed that it is the right thing for them to do i.e. that they are definitely transgendered.

Some people by-pass this system an pay for the work to be done privately, often in Eastern Europe or the Far East, and in some of these places, the only questions that get asked are along the lines of "how will you be paying?"

In this system, I have no special problem with taxpayer funding of the operations, provided the full gamut of counselling/therapy is outlined. I would not want to see those that don't have the patience to go through the full process, or that have been rejected by it as unsuitable, being able to reclaim the cost.

Indeed, from the tabloid coverage (both in the press and on "tabloid TV") of cases of "I had a sex change to be a woman and now I want to be a man again", once a dumb decision like this has been taken by a patient against medical advice, I somewhat begrudge any taxpayer funding of the corrective surgery. You break it, you bought it - even if "it" is your own body. (Up to a point, anyway - that point being that if you have been given specific medical advice against doing something and then you do it anyway, you should be on your own. If you haven't had such advice, no problem, it could happen to anyone.)

Should a sex change operation be allowed to be written off of the taxes of a person who has under gone a sex change operation?

A sex change operation is a radical form of cosmetic surgery. Cosmetic procedures (liposuction, nose jobs, etc.) are not deductible.

Thus the IRS made the right call.

People who desire sex changes are deeply disturbed. I would be all for deducting the cost of therapy to straighten them out. How presumptuous must one be to believe that nature "got it wrong". It's funny how cut and dry male versus female is: you have a Y chromosome, you're a guy, you don't and you're a girl. You don't get to choose. What's next, race transplants? I need more melanin or eye reconstruction surgery?

Should a sex change operation be allowed to be written off of the taxes of a person who has under gone a sex change operation?



Oh, Ignorance, once again, rears his ugly head and lands a double axel.

What's funny is how, sometimes, it's not so cut and dry. And even funnier when people like to believe that it's cut and dry. What if you have an extra chromosome that make you genetically male and female? XXY. Perhaps the most famous transgendered person with this condition is a woman named Caroline Cossey. Born a man, she had this chromosomal makeup. She went on to be a glamour model, a Bond girl and a Playboy centerfold. Obviously, she must've been disturbed... oh, how presumptuous of her.

People involved in accidents who have suffered some disfigurement are only getting surgery for cosmetic purposes, right? With some of this therapy you speak of, I'm sure they might be able to come to terms with their disfigurement. No need to undergo surgery and write it off on their taxes, right?

Now, did this particular individual suffer from this condition? I don't know... which is why I didn't vote in the poll.

According to Wikipedia, Caroline Cossey was actually XXXY.

That being said, Amlord, you have a gross misunderstanding of transgendered people. Oftentimes, as Entspeak has pointed out, people are born hermaphrodites, and they are assigned a gender at birth, in hopes of having those children leave normal lifestyles. However, sometimes those gender assignments are wrong. Additionally, sometimes boys are reassigned as girls because of accidents during circumcision. Of course, there is a growing number of seemingly "normal" girls and boys who do not feel comfortable with their gender from birth.

Although gender identity disorder is considered a mental disorder, it is highly controversial in that classification; AND most doctors do not agree with "conversion" therapy. From Wiki



I don't have a solid opinion on the debate question, because I don't know exactly how tax write-offs work, or the politics surrounding that sort of thing. However, I do lean towards Julian's opinion.

I will concede that when there is a genetic disorder, this surgery may be medically necessary.

It hasn't been shown in this case, however.



I would like to thank kimpossible for confirming that gender identity disorder is a mental illness and does not include intersex disorders.

While it's true that it is considered a mental disorder, many people disagree with that term. It's something akin to saying homosexuality is a mental disorder; in the same vein, conversion therapy doesn't work with homosexuals, why would it work on the transgendered? However, even if we continue to see it as a mental disorder, many doctors consider the only cure to be gender reassignment. If that is the case, and conversion therapy doesn't work, then wouldn't the logical conclusion be that gender reassignment is a necessary medical procedure to cure people of an "'illness"?

So, your saying surgery for GID is not necessary? Is surgery to correct disfigurement that occurs due to accident or trauma necessary? Why?

GID is a mental disorder, not a physical one. I cannot foresee a situation where surgery would be warranted for mental disorders, unless it was a disorder caused by a physical condition (such as a brain tumor).

As I said, for an intersex disorder, then surgery may be warranted. Nobody needs two sets of sex organs, for example. But "I was born the wrong sex" is simply not a valid statement to me. What's more likely -- Mother Nature got it wrong or you are wrong in the head?

Who is to say that the two are mutually exclusive? Mental disorders are simply impairments of neurological function with no obvious pathology. If someone invented a device that cured schizophrenia would you consider that unnecessary? Up until about 20 years there was almost no understanding of the pathology of that condition.

I know this is not an answer to the question... and the truth is I don't have an answer. I don't believe that Gender Identity Disorder (a term of classification, NOT an illness by the way) is a mental disorder. But at the same time, not all physiological conditions warrant public funding. I'm not sure how I feel about this; all I know is that most of the arguments that are made from the "nay" side or based on morality (whether conscious or not), and most of the arguments on the "pro" side seem to revolve around political/identity issues. This is a bad way to resolve medical questions.

This is a bit disingenuous. Clearly, humans think that Mother Nature got a lot of things wrong, which is why we have processed foods, birth control, cars, medicines, etc. And again, if a wide majority of doctors agree that reassignment surgery is the only viable solution to "curing" GID, then wouldn't that make gender reassignment surgery medically necessary? Simply because it's considered a mental illness by some (and I wholeheartedly disagree with this idea), does not mean that it does not warrant a physical solution. Those with bi-polar disorders are given pills in addition to therapy...Do you disagree with that physical solution to a mental illness? Schizophrenics are also given medication. There's a myriad of other "mental" illnesses that require physical solutions, I don't see why GID should be seen as any different.