The University of Pennsylvania will extend its health insurance coverage beginning in the fall to cover the costs of a sex change for undergraduate students.

The coverage will include unlimited psychological coverage, such as therapy sessions and hormonal treatments. Surgeries, called gender confirmation, up to $50,000 will also be covered. The decision comes after two years of planning and will only increase student health insurance costs by a few cents.

The Lambda Alliance pushed for the change in policy, said Tyler Ernst, a sophomore chemical and biological engineering and finance major and the chairman of the Lambda Alliance, Penn’s main LGBT organization. The idea was not proposed to fight the administration, he said, but to address an issue that affects a small yet significant portion of the Penn community. The idea for funding gender confirmation surgery was in the works for around two years, Ernst said.

“It started with the LGBT Center and the former Lambda chair, and it’s been in the works for a while,” Ernst said. “It’s really something we had to push for. We are doing something meaningful. It’s a small community of people, but the impact is really huge.”

The Lambda Alliance was required to pitch the concept to the Student Health Insurance Advisory committee at Penn. Lambda did its own research and decided $50,000 was a reasonable amount to request for surgery coverage, Ernst said. Costs for gender confirmation surgery can reach around $50,000 for a male-to-female transformation. Costs are less for female-to-male transformations but still significant.

“SHIAC did its own independent research and came up with a similar number,” Ernst said. “It raised prices by maybe seven cents a student.”

Bob Schoenberg, the founding director of the LGBT Center at Penn, said the low price raise makes the plan less objectionable to some.

“I would guess that even the students who would oppose it in principle wouldn’t be troubled by the premium,” Schoenberg said.

Students at Penn are required to be covered by health insurance, according to Penn’s health insurance policy brochure. If they opt not to pay for the Penn Student Insurance Plan — the plan under which the coverage will be added that is distributed by Aetna — they must prove they are covered under another health insurance plan. 

When people feel as if they are living in the wrong body, it is technically known as gender identity disorder. But Adrea Jaehnig, the director of the LGBT Resource Center at Syracuse University, said that is just the technical term.

‘Although gender identity disorder is listed as a mental illness by the (American Psychiatric Association Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders), we don’t refer to transgender or transsexual people in this way,’ Jaehnig said.

Schoenberg worked at Penn for 28 years and began the center in 1982. The Philadelphia campus is transgender friendly, much like SU, he said.

Ernst said he agrees the Philadelphia campus is transgender friendly, but he believes there are still issues that need to be addressed, such as the need for gender non-specific bathrooms and gender-neutral housing for freshmen.

“As far as the university goes, it’s totally top of the line,” Ernst said. “But there’s a difference between the positive and negative. The support is definitely there, but there are issues we are still trying to overcome.”

Schoenberg said he encountered people who claim the option Penn now funds will be life-changing, as they would not be able to afford the surgery otherwise. 

Individuals who identify as transgender but who don’t have the ability to get the surgery can be deeply affected, Jaehnig said. 

“The lack of access to proper health care treatment can result in depression, emotional turmoil or even suicide,” Jaehnig said.

The plan at Penn covers only undergraduate students now, but Schoenberg said there are plans in the works for coverage of the rest of the Penn community. The university supports the inclusion of transgender-related coverage in at least one of the different insurance plans available to faculty and staff, he said. But the plans for faculty and staff coverage are still about a year away, he said.

“By and large, Penn is a very open, welcoming, intelligent, understanding place,” Ernst said. “All of this makes it a very reasonable decision.”

Published on April 26, 2010 at 12:00 pm