The Internal Revenue Service has announced that it would abide by a 2010 decision that would allow transgendered people to deduct medical expenses associated with gender reassignment surgery.
Originally, the IRS had chalked up sex-change surgery as purely cosmetic, reported TIME. But after an acquiescence was filed earlier this month, the government agency notified the Tax Court that it would recognize medical expenses from surgeries as valid deductions.
“There is something to be said when a federal court recognizes general identity disorder as a serious medical condition,” says Karen Loewy, an attorney with Gay & Lesbian Advocates & Defenders.
The new allowance is not a complete victory for transgender people since the IRS will not consider procedures like breast augmentation for those who undergo gender reassignment to become female. The IRS still interprets the change as purely cosmetic and “directed at improving her appearance and not to treat disease as construed by the tax code.”
As Rhiannon O’Donnabhain, transgender female, explains on behalf of her attorney, Loewy, “From the beginning it was not about the money,” she said. “[I] just wanted fair and equitable treatment.”
Simply put, there is no such thing as “gender reassignment surgery.” One’s gender is present at birth, and no surgery, at least none currently known, can change it. It is SEX reassignment surgery. If that bothers you, call it “genital reconstructive surgery, or gender confirmation surgery (though this is also a misnomer because in many cases the person having the surgery has a gender at birth that matches their sex and is having the surgery for the wrong reasons. You cannot change your gender. You can change your gender presentation, as evidenced by those who are transgender, or you can change your sex to conform to your gender (this is what I, and other transsexuals have done, but you cannot choose, or change your gender. Otherwise, we would not need sex reassignment surgery. Even all but the most delusional or dishonest advocates of reparative therapy for transsexuals will admit that they have yet figured out how to do, though some insist on continuing to try, even if it results in the patient’s take his or her own life.