How Healthcare and Culture Impacts Cost and Experience of Sex Reassignment Surgery in Various Sites of Europe

Schimmel/Conrades Science Center 161

My presentation reviews how more widely accessible forms of health insurance impact a trans person’s ability to transition in the Netherlands, Germany, the Czech Republic, and Poland. This includes the steps and processes they must go through, the pressures of transitioning, and the overall costs of sex reassignment surgery, both socially and financially. It also takes into account the cultural stressors of transitioning as well as how different types of insurances are more or less beneficial to people in each of these countries. In order to achieve this research, I performed interviews and lectures on trans experience in each country that I visited, collecting translated materials and studies along the way. I learned about the various costs of transitioning outside of immediate gender reassignment surgery, and how the law may or may not protect trans people in each country. I also learned about many organizations in each country that set out to provide equity for trans people. Although the health care system was a positive for many transgender people in Europe, I learned it still poises many problems, especially in the more religious countries.