Where have I been?

To say I have not posted much recently would probably be an severe understatement. I was going along so great with my blog. I was posting on a regular basis, keeping things going, really feeling into it. Then, I went full time, work went super busy, and life just plain got in the way. It was like I no longer had anything significant to say anymore. I was too bust living life to stop and write about it. I also think I began to feel that sitting here writing about what I was doing and what was going through my mind was almost like an exercise in narcissism. I began writing a few posts, and, after rereading, lost interest in them.

They were just too mundane and boring. Boring to me at least. It’s not that I lost interest in writing, it’s just that I lost interest in writing about every little thing that I did. It became clear to me that I no longer cared to write about the details of my transition, my feelings in certain situations, or what the next steps are for me. I just plain lost interest in that.

So, I sit here tonight trying to figure out where I am going with this. Is this a worthwhile endeavor for me? I feel that it is, but what is it I want to say here. I have always felt that my most satisfying posts were those that focused on issues. My all time favorite being the post I wrote about medical benefits for trans people. That was a post and a topic that are still near and dear to my heart.

This was brought home even more by the fact that I have three friends who just underwent GRS, and used three different methods to finance their surgeries. One cashed out retirement funds, another took equity out of her home, and a third will be covered by insurance. What these three stories show is that we are finding any way that we can to pay for transition related expenses. How many of us have maxed out our credit cards for hormones, hair removal, or surgeries. How many still are struggling to figure out how to pay for all of this. The person who is covered by insurance likely would not have been able to get GRS if it were not for coverage recently added by her employer. In fact, she was a scheduled for an orchi when the benefits were announced. She was pretty much resigned to the fact that surgery was just a pipe dream.

So many of us are in that boat. We reach a point in transition where we just cannot afford any more. Where does this leave us? What of the broken dreams of fully aligning our bodies with our minds? The fight needs to continue. We need to continue to expand health coverage for transition related medical expenses. Of course it is a hard sell right now. Not only are we hurting in this economy, but so are many of the employers we work for.

So many times, trans health benefits are carried only by companies that self insure. What exactly does that mean? Well, it means that if an employee takes advantage of let’s say GRS, the surgery is not paid by the insurance company. Rather the employer pays for it through the insurance company. In other words, the insurance company acts merely as a middle man in the transaction, accepting the claims, evaluating them, ensuring they meet the guidelines, and then making payments.

Unfortunately, so many times that benefits are also not paid until after the procedure. What does this mean for us? Well, if we don’t have $20K to pay for surgery, we likely do not have $20K to pay up front and wait for reimbursement from the insurance company. There needs to be better benefits coordination when those benefits do exist. The whole purpose of medical transition benefits is to remove financial barriers to transition. In many instances, these benefits do not remove the barrier, but rather jut changes the barrier.

I would also say that the surgeons need to become more flexible when it comes to insurance coverage. There operate on a cash up front basis, and often are not willing to wait for an insurance company to pay after the surgery has been performed. Essentially, we are forced to pay for the goods before we receive them. And, what choice do we have? There are so few doctors that perform the surgery, so they set the rules. No cash up front, no GRS. In many ways, they help maintain the financial barriers to surgery.

There is a long way to go to fully remove the economic barriers to transition. Medical benefits for transition should be universal, plus there needs to be ENDA in place to help ensure we can keep our jobs so that we can have benefits to help pay for transition related medical expenses. There is a lot of work to be done in both of those areas.

Now, as for my blog, where is it going. I’m not sure right now. It may become more issue focused, exploring the many issues that we all face, with brief glimpses of what is actually going on in my life. I really don’t think it will be the diary/journal it was before. I have move past that in many ways. But, I will forge on, trying to keep this going.

OK, a few quick updates. Work is still going fabulously well. The fact that I am trans is a non-issue, almost never comes up, and nobody treat me any differently. I’m working my butt of in my manager training program so I can get my own branch next month, which is very exciting, and a hell of a lot of work. I am actually managing two branches this month, and doing it well. Oh yeah, speaking of surgery, I am scheduled for my GRS next July in Trinidad. Hoping insurance coverage at my company will be worked out more by then, I cannot exactly put up the money up front and wait for reimbursement, but we shall see. Other than that, I am just enjoying life, though I am really trying to figure out a few things, ad figure out more about who I am. I neglected myself for so long, that I need to get out and finally enjoy being me. It’s time to relax, let down my hair(now that I have hair to let down), and have some fun!

I’ll try and check back in more regularly, but no promises here!