XTra.ca – Krishna Rau
With a provincial election rapidly approaching, trans activists are working to raise the profile of their issues with both the queer community and Ontario’s political parties.
“We’re going to do what we need to do to put it on the political agenda,” says Susan Gapka of the Trans Health Lobby Group.
The lobby group – along with such allies as Egale Canada and the Coalition for Lesbian and Gay Rights in Ontario – wants to have sex reassignment surgery (SRS) relisted under the Ontario Health Insurance Plan (OHIP). Ontario stopped paying for SRS in 1998 under the Mike Harris Conservative government.
The Lobby Group also wants gender identity included as a protected category under the Ontario Human Rights Code and a simplification of the process for changing gender on government identity documents like health cards and birth certificates.