Brazil To Provide Free Sex Changes

Introduction: Hey, hey. So before you read this let us understand that I have been to the nation in question. Let us also understand that I have learned - through studies and personal experiences as well as anecdotal stories from gitano rom - just how racism, classism, and so on operate in Brazil and its culture. I am not an expert - fuckin, no shit, sherlock - but this shit is something that I get and understand. I also approach this from the privileged perspective of someone who has had bottom surgery. Yes, I worked sex work and still have scars on my body from the work that earned me the money for it. But having had bottom surgery - regardless of the source of income - is a privilege on its own. I acknowledge this and understand it. I will totally listen to open and honest criticism from anyone so long as it is an invitation for open and honest conversation. Cause when criticism happens then learning always needs to follow, right?

Okay.

Always an awkward topic for me to write about. For the most part this article indicates that something pretty great happened in Brazil recently as far as legislation around medical provisions is concerned. Which is awesome for those who want to pursue the bottom surgery route, because all of a sudden those without the necessary class privilege to afford it without hard work can in theory spend their money elsewhere without worrying about how to save for such an invasive procedure. Assuming of course that the surgeons in Brazil are capable of providing for the needs of the their patients. This is all as good as it gets right now - or so I suppose - for those transwomen in foreign nations who have tracked themselves for bottom surgery.

In fact, I wish that the United States had a similar mandate and I wish that Canada actually lived up to their idealistic promises as far as Canadian health care and services for the Canadian transgeneral population are concerned. No, what makes me twitch when I read this article are the final two sentences which read:

"Transsexuals represent about 0.001 percent of the Brazilian population, but for this minority, sexual-reassignment surgery is a question of life and death," said Luiz Mott, founder of the Bahia Gay Group. "It is unjust and cruel to argue that the health system should concern itself with other priorities."

Brazil's public-health system offers free care to all Brazilians, including a variety of surgeries and AIDS medication. But long lines and poorly equipped facilities mean that those who can afford it usually choose to pay for private hospitals and clinics.

I am sorry Luiz Mott but your statement is way too fucking generalized. First of all, your census information no doubt only represents those transgeneral peoples capable of receiving medical recognition for their status. Unless of course Brazil includes transgeneral status on its census inquiries (it may and I do not know if it does) instead of estimates of transgeneral populations based upon those who have already accessed bottom surgery, as is done in most every country worlwide. So unless I am wrong about the Brazilian census chances are good that your 0.0001% figure only reflects those have who already possessed the priviledge necessary to pursue the bottom surgery you are claiming that they need to survive. I recommend that you take a second look at your math and apply a more critical gathering approach to your statistics.

I also recommend dropping the old line that bottom surgery is an issue of life or death. The medical community has fed us this line for so long that even transwomen who neither need nor want bottom surgery may be coerced to offer false confessions in which they must tell their providers how very much they require bottom surgery or else they will do something drastic, all so their providers will actually provide. Which is just absolutely fucking disgusting. Having recently dealt with the realities of suicide I can say with some security that it is both unethical and fuckwittedly putrescent to imply - or outright claim - that the whole of the transgeneral MTF population is suicidal unless presented with brand new cunt.

There are so many women who are so much tougher than that, Luiz Mott, and so many who are so beautiful that a scalpel need never touch their flesh to confirm their womanhood or their beauty. This is not to disparage whatever hard work you may have put into this pursuit but it is intended to disparage a systemic attitude that has driven many trans women into many different corners and ghettos. My ire is not directed at you but at an article that chose which quotes to publish.

Finally and to summarize: As the queer population worlwide is concerned, there are many more priorities which medical providers and communities should concern themselves with. When publicly accessible AIDS and HIV and surgical lines are so long that even the privileged will option to spend money rather than accept a thing for free, so understaffed that lines are are long, and funding so poor that facilities must be described as poorly equipped? When racism is alive and well - and yes, Brazil, though your concepts of white versus black are different than our own here in the States it is from experience and the experiences of others that I know just how equally problematic and fucked up they are - in your own backyard and no doubt informing which populations are most in need just as they are informed here in the northern continent? And your offer of 'free life versus death' surgical procedures will only further diminish and distract from the already underfunded medical and surgical procedures that are provided?

When all of this holds true? 0.0001% who have no doubt already acquired bottom surgery elsewhere pales in comparison to the 0.6% known citizens who must struggle with long lines and 'poorly equipped facilities' just to keep on fighting, and all those others who are already accessing surgical and medical procedures which are no doubt truly necessary for the avoidance of consensual death. I do not mean to pick on your words, Luiz Mott, because I know how much of your life you have committed to the causes facing LGBT peoples. I am familiar with you. But I also hold out hope that the quotes attributed to you were only wind up the ass of the government to get them to provide something, rather than words you spoke in true belief. I respect you and I admire the hard work you have done for a community that is often under-represented worlwide.

But to be perfectly honest? There are many things that are a whole heck of a lot more important than convincing the world at large - and subsequently trans women themselves - that we all need a brand new pussy to keep on living. We need support in medical communities for those who differ from standard narratives and models. We need support from government institutions dedicated to providing community services that keep transwomen safe. We need safer streets and non-discrimination legislation that actually accomplishes what it says it is going to accomplish and we need dramatic cultural changes on top of that, and all of this needs to happen right the fuck now. Seriously. Right the fuck now.

Besides which: Who the hell are you - a nontrans man - to be speaking for transwomen anyway? Cause we all know that who it is you are talking about. And who are these reporters - associated press as they are - to be taking about such a complicated issue yet writing so damn little about it? And as for free pussy? Well shit, Mott, something made me think that was the patriarch's agenda. Not ours, not until we get the more important shit out of the way to begin with.