PlanetOut.com
The Vatican’s newspaper took a stand Friday against providing free hormone treatments for transgender people, which the government of Tuscany began doing this week.
“The problem is not cost; it’s principle,” said L’Osservatore Romano, calling the government’s decision “incredible.”
The Italian region of Tuscany is the first to provide the treatments for free as part of its regional health service, Reuters reported.
“Faced with problems that afflict health care in Tuscany, waiting lists for operations, (insufficient funds for) chemotherapy and inadequate numbers of medical staff, perhaps it would have been better not to give precedence to hormonal treatment for sex changes,” the paper said.
A U.S. activist for transgender rights called the Vatican’s stand “ignorance.”
“The Vatican’s criticism is a glaring example of the widespread ignorance surrounding the health care needs of transgender people,” said Simon Aronoff, deputy director of the National Center for Transgender Equality in Washington, D.C.