German court grant transexuals right to a BA

KASSEL, (AFP) – Male-to-female transsexuals have a legal right to
breast enlargement operations when hormone therapy fails to give them a
feminine shape, a German federal court ruled Tuesday.

A transsexual may receive implants if her new breasts have not yet
reached the size of a bra’s A-cup, the Federal Social Court in the
central city of Kassel said.

“Transsexual insurance policy-holders can make a claim to treatment
measures to allow them to adapt their gender, including surgical
procedures on healthy organs to minimise their psychological suffering,
so as to approach the appearance of the other sex that is desired,” the
court said.

It said such a procedure was justified even if the patient had not yet had a sex-change operation.

The court ruled in the case of a 62-year-old whose health insurance plan paid for hormone treatment and a sex change but whose breasts failed to grow to female proportions.

The insurance company declined to pay for an operation for larger breasts.

In a second case before the court, the insurance company paid for
hormone treatments, cosmetic surgery to make the face more feminine and
two operations to make the voice of a transsexual patient more womanly.

It had also approved a sex-change operation, which the patient had not yet undergone.

The company argued that hormonal changes could result from the
genital operation and lead the breasts to grow and thus rejected a claim
for breast augmentation.

The court rejected the insurance companies’ stance in both cases,
stating that only when a patient’s breasts “completely fill” an A-cup
could they be considered to have reached an “undoubtedly gender-specific
range”.

The judges said that this right to breast-enlargement surgery applied
even before a sex change, basing its ruling on a recent decision by
Germany’s top court which found that such a procedure was not a
requirement for a legal name change.


source HERE

Good for them!

I'm really happy for them, but I just wonder if the insurance would be happy to pay for a woman with less than an A cup too which could jave an impact on her life?

There's no mention of that in the article... it wouldn't be very fair to those women who fit that category would it if the law was pass for transsexuals and not for women. xx

I think that's brilliant news, but also agree with you cookie. I hope they do offer it to women in a similar position otherwise that's sexual discrimination and a whole new court case.