Sask. resident fights for surgery amid gender affirming care wasteland
Global News
Gillian Walker, a transgender, non-binary person, said they had to bear the cost of gender-affirming surgery. The issue made its way to the Saskatchewan Human Rights Commission.
“The surgery was necessary for me to live.”
Two Saskatchewan transgender persons have reached settlements with the Saskatchewan Ministry of Health over access to gender affirmation surgery in the province and won financial compensation for expenses they were forced to pay. One person declined to be interviewed by Global News, but Gillian Walker is sharing their story.
Walker, a transgender, non-binary person, said they had to pay out of pocket to have a gender-affirming diagnosis and surgery.
“I would not be sitting in front of you had I not had the surgery,” Walker said in an interview with Global News. “It is that painful for someone who is transgender.”
Walker said it was their wish to have a mastectomy with chest reconstruction in 2015, a procedure only offered if an individual is diagnosed with gender dysphoria.
“You can think of gender dysphoria as an insane dissonance between who you are in inside and the way that your body is represented to the world,” Walker explained.
At the time, gender dysphoria could only be diagnosed by two clinics in Canada, neither of which were in Saskatchewan.
Walker was placed on a two-year waiting list just for the diagnosis.
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