Oregon Dems demand insurance companies cover sex changes—leave detransitioners without care

HB 2002 requires that health insurance companies cover “medically necessary” procedures such as hair electrolysis, tracheal shaves, and facial feminisation surgery for trans-identified males, but when one Republican representative proposed adding coverage for detransition-related treatments, it was flatly rejected by Democrats.

Rep. Ed Diehl took to Twitter to call out the wording of the bill, arguing that Democrats refused to include detransition care because acknowledging that detransition occurs means acknowledging that gender identity is not immutable.

“We know we are harming some children and young adults with these treatments,” said Diehl. “Shouldn’t we offer them the opportunity to correct the mistakes made by the medical professionals?”

Diehl pointed to recent studies that show the detransition rate to be between 7% and 30%, far higher than the “less than 1%” rate so often quoted by proponents of so-called gender-affirming care.

“This is enough for the UK, Sweden, Norway and several other countries to put the brakes on ‘gender-affirming treatment’ and limit it to clinical settings or ban it outright for minors,” Diehl added.

“In Oregon, however, we are full steam ahead, ignoring these evidence-based studies and the European response. We are expanding access.”

When Diehl raised the issue with the sharply rising rate of detranstion with the Oregon House Committee on Behavioral Health and Health Care, Chair Rob Nosse refused to accept that the rate was so high.

"I don't agree with your assertion about the number of people that regret the decision they made to change gender," said Rosse. Diehl responded that he would share the evidence with the Chair.

Diehl believes that detransition challenges the approved narrative of the modern trans rights movement - that gender identity, defined vaguely as one’s internal sense of self, cannot be changed. Those who advocate for child and adolescent sex changes claim that healthcare professionals are able to determine if someone was “born in the wrong body.

“So here is the crux of the issue: To detransition is to demonstrate that gender identity is not immutable,” explained Diehl. “By including detransition treatment coverage in the bill, the true believers would be acknowledging that detranstion is real, that some children and young adults are being harmed, and that the professional can be wrong,” concluded Diehl.

“And that is simply something they cannot admit.”

Denying the existence of detransition is a common theme on amongst left-wing politicians. During the 2020 debate on Bill C-6, Canada’s so-called conversion therapy ban, NDP MP Randall Garrison called detransition a “false narrative” and accused those who brought it up in the debate of using “transphobic arguments.”

Earlier this month, Texas State Rep. Jeff Leach introduced HB 3502, a bill requiring health insurance companies that provide coverage for sex change interventions to provide coverage for all possible adverse outcomes, including those related to detransition.

Leach was prompted to draft the bill after listening to Chloe Cole, a detransitioned young woman, speak about the difficulty she is having accessing detransition-related healthcare. Cole suffers from ongoing complications related to the medically unnecessary bilateral mastectomy she underwent at age 15. Cole is now suing the healthcare providers whom she alleges “emotionally and physically damaged” her.

Last month Prisha Mosley, a detransitioned young woman from Michigan, told a Texas Senate Health Committee of her ongoing health issues caused by the medical sex change interventions she underwent as a mentally ill teenager.

Mosley said trusting her doctors and the transgender community has resulted in her dealing with joint pain, voice changes, hormonal issues, and vaginal atrophy.

“The medical professionals who did this to me have abandoned me, and the trans community has abandoned me. Doctors assisted me in mutilating myself and then left me in the cold when I wanted the harm to stop,” Mosley told the assembled committee.

Genspect, an international organization campaigning for better care of people experiencing gender distress, supports coverage for detransition-related treatments.

"Genspect is fully supportive of this bill that would require insurance that covers medical insurance to include the cost of secondary complications related to medical transition and also to include the cost of detransition," Genspect founder Stella O'Malley told The Post Millennial.

"We think this is a necessary bill as it will provide comprehensive cover to anyone who seeks medical transition rather than the partial cover that is currently offered. The insurance world needs to acknowledge that medical transition carries a heavy medical burden on the body and it is disingenuous to cover the initial process without also covering the countless complications that are typically associated with these surgeries."