27 May 2019

The ‘right body’ - select committee hears petition on gender confirmation surgery

From The House , 7:30 am on 27 May 2019

A petitioner says the gender confirmation surgery is a vital part of transgender youth completing transition to their new sex and should be funded by the government.

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A select committee room in Parliament House.  Photo: VNP / Daniela Maoate-Cox

In September last year, the petition of Diane Sparkes was announced to the House of Representatives by the Clerk of the House. It asks:

“That the House of Representatives ask the Government to fund medically necessary gender confirmation surgery for youth medically diagnosed as transgender.”

 

After the petition was announced to the House it was referred to the Health Committee which has eight members;  

About seven months Diane Sparkes appeared in person to speak to the committee about her request.

“I’m speaking as a person that’s been a transexual all my life. I’m 78 now and when I was eight I knew something wasn’t right, not wrong as the media tend to [say],” she said glancing at media in the room.

“There was nothing wrong with my body, it worked fine. It just wasn’t the right body.”

The time in between the presentation of the petition and a submitter appearing is used by MPs on the Committee to read the submission or evidence attached to the petition - something Diane Sparkes made sure to check.

“You guys have all read this stuff I hope? I put a lot of effort into that and it’s very meaningful to me, to let you know where I stand.”

Petitions are meant to be a last resort when other avenues like legal action have been exhausted. They can ask for general policy changes or be more personal but must also ask for something that Parliament can actually do.

Diane Sparks is driven by a need to help young people have better access to surgeries to gender-confirming surgeries and said the cost of procedures like vulvoplasty are too high comparing costs of $8,000 in Thailand with private quotes for $32,000 in New Zealand.

“I’m only fortunate that when my mother died, she left me sufficient money so that I could go to Thailand and get it done. I was advised not to get it done here, it was not a good deal.”

People are given about ten minutes to speak generally on their submission and then MPs can ask questions.

National MP Michael Woodhouse asked how to accurately identify youth who will transition and those who will not.

“There is enough background information in the medical profession to work it out provided they have an open mind,” Ms Sparkes said.

Select committees can also ask for officials or experts to provide information that will help the MPs figure out what to do with the petition which in this case is the Ministry of Health.

“Currently 18 is the minimum age for [gender affirming] surgeries in New Zealand. This policy has been reiterated by the Hauora Tahine Guidelines for the Northern Region transgender health service and the guidelines for gender-affirming health care authored by key transgender health specialists in New Zealand,” said Caroline Flora from the Ministry of Health.

“Having an older age limit helps to ensure that transgender youth are legally able to make their own decisions and enables youth to experience and socially adjust to their gender before undergoing irreversible surgery so we consider this age limit appropriate at this time.”

Expectations of transgender and non-binary New Zealanders transitioning can range from no-medical intervention to hormone treatments, to surgical options like gender affirming genital reconstruction surgery said Ms Flora.

“As a first step to improve access there is now a commitment to provide three feminising gender affirming genital reconstruction surgeries and one masculinising surgery every two years funded through the high costs treatment pool,” she said.

“This had previously been a maximum figure rather than a minimum.”

MPs can also question submitters and its Chair Louisa Wall (Labour MP) asked Chief Medical Office from the Ministry of Health, Andy Simpson how many people are under 24.

“We have broken it up into decades if that’s ok, 20 to 29,” he said.

“This is just looking at people who have been on the list since 2014... so this is related to about 107 people on the waiting list, When we look at our age spread on their current age, this is irrespective of the time that they came onto the list... we have a total of 44 that are in the 20 to 29 age group and 37 that are in the 30 to 39 age group. The majority are actually in the 20 to 29 age group.”  

Petitions have the ability to prompt major change like the 2016 petition of Wiremu Demcheck asking Parliament to apologise and wipe the criminal records of men who were convicted for consensual adult sex before the Homosexual Law Reform Act 1986 came into force.

That petition resulted in a law change and an apology.

At the very least all a committee has to do is report back to the House that a petition has been considered.

It can recommend some changes and if it does, then the Government must respond to those recommendations within 60 working days.