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"The Staggering Costs of Being Transgender in the US, Where Even Patients with Health Insurance Can Face Six-figure Bills" - Benji Jones

  • Business Insider
  • New York, NY
  • (July 10, 2019)

An estimated 1.4 million people in the U.S. are transgender, which comes at a heavy price. The cost of medical treatments can add up to more than $100,000, and they’re often not covered by health insurance. Plus, transgender people face discrimination in the workplace, which translates to unemployment rates that are as much as three times as high than they are for the general public. For many years, doctors tried to alleviate gender dysphoria with talk therapy, but in the absence of surgeries and other medical interventions, that approach was an “abysmal failure,” according to Joshua Safer, MD, executive director of the Mount Sinai Center for Transgender Medicine and Surgery, and senior faculty of endocrinology, diabetes, and bone disease at the Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai. “We have suicide attempt rates of 40 percent among transgender people where there are no medical interventions offered, and so we know that’s a failed strategy,” said Dr. Safer.

— Joshua Safer, MD, Executive Director, Center for Transgender Medicine and Surgery at Mount Sinai, Senior Faculty, Medicine, Endocrinology, Diabetes and Bone Disease, Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai

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