A health plan for transgender studentsJUSTIN PELIGRI, September 4, 2013
[George Washington University (GW)] has taken concrete steps to make the campus friendlier for gay, lesbian and bisexual students over the past few years. For instance, there's now gender-neutral housing, an LGBT minor and an LGBT Resource Center.
But GW is letting the transgender community down. It is forgetting about the "T" in LGBT.
Just across town, American University announced last week that student insurance plans will cover 80 percent of the costs of sex reassignment surgery and associated treatments starting this year.
This is great news for transgender students at American, who might not otherwise be able to afford transgender medical treats, which the Human Rights Campaign says "should be considered medically necessary, reconstructive and not cosmetic."
But that guidance, endorsed by the American Medical Association – the largest group of doctors and medical students in the nation – seems to fall on deaf ears on many college campuses, including our own. Only about three dozen colleges, including New York University and Cornell, cover sex reassignment surgeries.
