The health system will now be more accessible for the transgender community, Health Minister Nitzan Horowitz said Tuesday after releasing a series of new policies.
“For too long, the state has looked away from this community, closed and sealed its eyes and ears. This block has pushed many members of the community to the margins of the society, to a life in difficult conditions and to the street,” said Horowitz at a press conference at Sheba Medical Center at Tel Hashomer. “The difficulties faced by the transgender community are exclusion, rejection. There are almost no transgender people who have not experienced curses and physical violence, horrifying as it may sound, this is routine in the trans community. LGBTQ-phobia has a price.”
Among the steps being taken are increasing the number of sex reassignment surgeries and making the surgery more available in Israel. Access to the surgery is limited in Israel, with transgender individuals needing to wait four years or even longer before being able to undergo the surgery.
“This is a medical procedure in all respects. The surgeries are not cosmetic, these are both life-changing and life-saving surgeries,” said Horowitz,
Sex reassignment surgery in Israel is carried out solely at Sheba with the Gender Reassignment Board also sitting at the medical center.
Some NIS 90 million has been set aside for the needs of the LGBTQ+ community in Israel in the state budget that was approved by the cabinet on Monday.
The transgender community in Israel faces many difficulties when interacting with the healthcare system, with 55-60% of the transgender community avoiding receiving medical care, according to a report published earlier this year by the Nir Katz Center of Agudah – The Association for LGBTQ Equality in Israel.
Some 64% of the transgender community reported negative or discriminatory treatment by medical staff and 40% reported that medical staff refused to treat them because of their gender identity, according to a report by Dr. Sigal Goldin and the Levinsky Clinic of the Tel Aviv District Health Office published last year.
Some 36% of the transgender community reported dealing with verbal abuse and 8% reported physical violence against them at healthcare centers.
Horowitz announced that medical staff will also be trained to better interact with the LGBTQ+ community and its needs.
“This isn’t just another ordinary struggle, it is a struggle to be who you are, a struggle for freedom, a struggle for life,” added Horowitz. “As elected officials and as a state our moral duty is to allow every person to live their lives as they choose.”
Horowitz promised as well to implement the recommendations of the inter-ministerial team for the advancement of the trans population.לכבוד הוא לי לפעול כשר הבריאות למען הקהילה הטרנסית. זה לא רק מאבק על החופש והשיוויון, וזה מאבק על החיים.ההליך להתאמה מגדרית הוא הליך מציל חיים. אנחנו נקצר את התורים לניתוחים, נקל על האישורים לטיפולים נלווים, נכשיר את הצוותים הרפואיים במערכת למפגש עם להט"ב, ונעשה זאת בגאווה ️⚧️ pic.twitter.com/frWmvP7DZ9
— Nitzan Horowitz نيتسان هوروفيتس ניצן הורוביץ (@NitzanHorowitz) August 3, 2021
The team stressed in a report last year that “recognizing and respecting the gender identity of people on the trans spectrum should be the default when providing government services with the understanding that this is a requirement that is at the most basic core of human dignity.”
The report stressed that the sex reassignment process in Israel was too complex and needed to be simplified, and that sex reassignment surgery needed to be offered at more hospitals – not just Sheba. The team also recommended that transgender people of younger ages be allowed to receive the surgery with their parents’ approval.
The team issued a number of recommendations to the Health Ministry, including not requiring the entire committee for approving sex reassignment surgery and allowing surgeries that aren’t on the genitals to be conducted at other clinics. The team also recommended that a team be established to advance plans to include training relevant to transgender issues for all medical workers.
Despite the press conference focusing on the transgender community and the fact that the community is often overlooked and ignored, the questions asked by journalists afterwards focused solely on coronavirus regulations, without addressing the transgender community or the steps announced by the health minister.
The Israeli Society of Plastic & Aesthetic Surgery welcomed the announcement by Horowitz, saying: “The surgeries, alongside the aesthetic treatments, are essential for those who need sex reassignment in order to live in harmony with the new identity and most of them have encountered bureaucratic complications up until now.”
The society stressed that any improvements – including expanding the availability of surgery – should be implemented alongside strict training such as that conducted by the society, in order to prevent any risk to life.
“A day when the health minister presents a statement to the media, the first of its kind, on improving the response to the trans community, with the Israeli flag, the pride flag and the trans community flag behind him – is definitely an exciting day for us,” said Aguda in response to Horowitz’s statement.
“The meeting today placed the trans struggle for equality at the forefront of the LGBTQ+ struggle – and this is of course a great pride for us. We will continue to work closely with the Health Ministry to ensure that the statements become acts on the ground,” the Aguda added.
Some 23.5% of the cases of transphobia reported in 2020 to the Nir Katz Center were related to transphobia, discrimination and difficulty to exercise rights in the health system.
About 40% of transgender people have attempted suicide at least once in their life, according to the Health Ministry. Earlier this year, amid policy changes intended to make the mental health system in Israel more accessible for the transgender community, the Health Ministry stopped defining being transgender as a mental disorder, changing the medical definition from “gender identity disorder” to “gender incongruence.”
The policy changes also stated that there is no justification to conduct conversion therapy to attempt to alter gender identity or sexual orientation and require that patients be addressed with their chosen pronouns.