OwenSoundSunTimes.com – Jim Algie
Linda Ann Wootton used to be Art.
The change formally began about nine years ago with a diagnosis of gender identity disorder. But Wootton, now 62 and living in Owen Sound, has been working this out all her life.
The diagnosis coincided with a controversial Ontario government decision in 1998 to delist gender reassignment procedures from among those eligible for funding by the Ontario Health Insurance Plan. Subsequent governments have resisted calls to reinstate the full range of gender identity treatments. That includes surgical reconstruction of reproductive and urinary organs.
?This is very hard to live with not being anatomically correct and looking right,? Wootton said in a recent interview at her downtown Owen Sound home. ?We look at our male genitalia as a birth defect and it?s corrected through surgery.?