Every fortnight, I get members of the knuckle-dragging community coming on my Guardian blog and saying "Why should the NHS pay for this? Stop stealing all my money and go back where you came from! It's political correctness gone mad, except they won't even let you say 'political correctness gone mad' any more! You couldn't make it up!" (I'm paraphrasing slightly, I admit.)
Most people living with gender dysphoria (follow the link: you might learn something, if that's not too terrifying a prospect) will tell you that by the time they decided to transition, it was because they couldn't face living without doing so. The comedian Bethany Black says in her show that the total cost to the state of her transition over her lifetime works out at about £27,000. If she'd killed herself, the inquest that must legally follow any suicide would have cost the state £32,000, so by transitioning she's saved the state £5,000. (Suicide, of course, may follow any amount of mental health treatment undertaken at public expense.)
By extension, a working human being in the UK pays £600,000 in tax over the course of a lifetime, according to The Sunday Times, so by continuing to live your life in the face of considerable prejudice and opposition, you've put nearly two thirds of a million pounds back into public funds.
Then there's the 'ethical' argument of "Why should I pay for someone's sexuality [sic]? It's political correctness (cut)' My counter to that is 'Why should I pay for people's sports or DIY injuries? Or the damage to people or property inflicted by drunken morons on any weekend in any town or city? Or unwinnable decade-long wars waged against distant nations full of brown people on questionable pretexts?'
Sex Reassignment Surgery costs the NHS £10,000 per person, and according to your beloved Daily Mail, and on average 140 people have the operation per year. Consequently, £1,400,000 of NHS money is spent per year on SRS (that calculation: 140 x £10,000).
There are around 26,000,000 taxpayers in the United Kingdom, according to Yahoo! Answers, so 1,400,000 divided by 26,000,000 means that you personally are paying £0.054 per year towards SRS (that's Sex Reassignment Surgery).
To put this into an understandable context: buy three less Black Jack or Fruit Salad chews per annum, and you've more than offset your loss. Incidentally, I'm happy to send this sum of money to you in order to offset it, as long as you pay for the postage.
So anyway, it's a fascinating argument and I really enjoy having it every fortnight. If you can't wait until the next time, numpties, here's a virtual present for you to pass the time! x
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While I absolutely agree that reassignment surgery should be available on the NHS, the mathematics of it seem a little off given that you've chosen to use £10000 as the figure for your calculations.
ReplyDeleteSurely that only covers the surgery itself and not the pre and post-surgical treatments and counselling etc? You quote Bethany as saying the figure for the whole process is more like £27000, after all.
As I say, we actually agree on this issue, I'm just a stickler for accurate maths ;)
Hi Lola,
ReplyDeleteI did say that the calculation refers only to Sex Reassignment Surgery, not the entire process - I've explained in the article how I cover the £27,000 figure many times over in the course of my taxpaying life!
Actually, if I divide £27,000 by 26,000,000, I find that my transition costs each taxpayer a total of £0.001038.
ReplyDeleteLike I said somewhere else the average taxpayer pays around £500,000 in tax in his/her lifetime (more after the 31 Dec when the Tories raise VAT). As such you are potentially saving the taxpayer £473,000 by having GRS.
ReplyDeleteI think it utterly sad that you even have to ressort to mathematics to win people over. I understand why you do, and I understand this may strike a cord with quite a few people who feel the welfare state in general is theft etc.
ReplyDeleteThe real reason these people are objecting isn't on financial grounds, however, it's because they don't or can't sit down, do research, ask questions, try to examine their own prejudices, and make a moral judgment about the topic.
Screw the money. What about health, happiness and dignity?
It's not just that you'll "pay us" back for the SRS by the taxes you pay from your income from being a beautiful writer, you'll pay us back by being a beautiful writer.
Simple as that. I think you're fab, and very funny.