Sex-change funding is necessary

[Shana A]

Sex-change funding is necessary
Take a moment and imagine what it's like to have a sense of identity that's completely at odds with your body -- and with society
Michael A. Gilbert, Citizen Special
Published: Thursday, May 22, 2008

http://www.canada.com/ottawacitizen/news/opinion/story.html?id=e7e297f9-9f2b-40fd-ad9d-4c64277f984c

The great majority of us tend to think of sex and gender as something quite settled and immutable. There are males and females, women and men, and you are born one or the other and that's the end of it.

We think this because most of us have no problem living in our birth-designated sex, and from the moment the nurse declares, "It's a girl!" or, "It's a boy!" everything seems to follow quite naturally. What we don't realize is that we are the lucky ones. We do not have to struggle to pretend to be a gender that that does not fit, that feels unnatural and artificial. We are not mired in despair at not having a body that matches our mind. We are fortunate. We are not transsexual.