Sex Affirming Surgeries
Sex Affirming Surgeries (SAS or SRS) are now an insured service in Nova Scotia!
This is the culmination of a very long battle lead by the Nova Scotia Rainbow Acton Project.
If you are a Trans person and want details on these services please go to the 'prideHealth' site. As a starting point you may want to review the 'Trans Health Guide'. Then you can contact the folks at prideHealth for more information.
For folks under age 26 there are a lot of resources and support at the Youth Project and they are starting to offer services across the province.
Identification Monicker
In 2015 it became very simple for Trans people to change the F or M on their birth certificate to match their true identity.
This is a major development! If you are wondering why just ask any Trans person.
In order to make this change you should contact Vital Statistics,
Service Nova Scotia and start the application process.
Are we done?
We now have SAS, Monicker Alignment and Trans people are explicitly included under Human Rights legislation. I think that covers the legal and medical needs for Trans people. Unfortunately there is more to it than just that. Being a member of the LGBT community in NS is not easy. There is still a lot of transphobia and homophobia to overcome. These are social phenomena that require change and that will take a long time to implement. For example more religious groups are becoming more accepting. (Some are declaring a formal affirmation.) But is is not easy to be in high school if you are a member of the LGBT community.
I think that the way to foster these changes is being as open as possible about our identity and to give more folks a positive exposure and to dispel the associated fear. It is that fear that leads to the hatred that culminates in the ...phobia.
It Gets Better!
May 2015