The College Fix

Financial donors to Yale University may soon find their dollars are doing more than simply educating students. Some of those dollars may soon go to work helping students add or remove various body parts.

The Yale Daily News reports:

Though Stanford, the University of Pennsylvania, Harvard and Brown offer health insurance coverage for students to receive gender reassignment surgery, Yale is still reviewing its policies for the procedure.

The Yale Health Plan does not currently cover gender reassignment surgeries for students, but coverage was extended to faculty and staff at the managerial and professional levels in 2011 and to the unionized workforce last month. Dr. Paul Genecin, director of University Health Services, said he has noticed “increasing interest” both at Yale and other Ivy League institutions in offering insurance coverage for the procedure. Yale Health has received “a small number” of requests from students for gender-related surgery insurance coverage in the past, he said, and changes to student benefits are currently “under consideration.”

Gabriel Murchison ’14, president of the Resource Alliance for Gender Equity, said the lack of coverage is a sign of how unwelcoming the campus environment is for prospective transgender, gender nonconforming and queer students.

“The [current] policy sends a message to trans and gender nonconforming students that our concerns are not a priority, not to mention its effect on students who need this care and rely on the Yale Health Plan for their health coverage,” Murchison said.

Full story here.

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