Sex changes for all!
A Massachusetts prison inmate convicted of murder is fighting in court to win free operations that would change this individual from a violent man into a probably still-violent woman — the tab picked up by Mr. and Ms. Taxpayer.
An Army private serving hard time for an espionage conviction feels as if he’s a woman trapped inside a man’s body. Now, the Pentagon’s chief is arranging for the soldier to get free treatment for the gender dilemma.
You will pay.
And New York City’s foster-care honchos have awarded sex-change treatments to four young adults since 2010. Three individuals who believed they were saddled with the wrong genitals underwent surgeries, at a cost to taxpayers of up to $50,000 each. One received hormone treatments at a price of up to $265 a year.
All it takes is a diagnosis of gender dysphoria — previously known as gender-identity disorder. Judges go limp and government officials, terrified of being accused of denying what advocates call necessary medical treatments, are starting to dole out sex changes like candy.
Michelle Kosilek, now 65, previously known as Robert, was sentenced to life in prison without possibility of parole for murdering wife Cheryl while living as a man in 1990 — nearly decapitating her with piano wire and leaving her in a mall parking lot in a Boston suburb.
A federal judge ordered prison officials in 2012 to pay for Kosilek’s sex-change surgeries, a decision affirmed by an appeals court panel. In a last-ditch attempt to stop the madness, prison officials in the Bay State argued last month that the operations aren’t necessary — jailers have already bent over backward for the killer, giving Kosilek female hormones, laser hair removal and psychotherapy. Kosilek could become the nation’s first inmate to get a taxpayer-paid sex change, but won’t be the last.
Army Pvt. Chelsea Manning, formerly known as Bradley, is getting nothing but hugs from military brass. The former intelligence analyst, 26, is serving a 35-year sentence at a men’s military lockup after being convicted last August of sending some 700,000 classified US military and State Department documents and battlefield videos to the anti-secrecy website WikiLeaks while working in Iraq in 2009 and ’10. There’s a problem.
Transgenders are forbidden from serving in the US military, and the Defense Department does not provide trans-related medical care. But Manning can’t be discharged from the service while doing time. So last month, Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel gave the Army approval to try to work out a plan to transfer the convict to a civilian facility, where Manning can be treated for gender dysphoria. Manning is the first military inmate to ask for hormone therapy and to be allowed to live as a woman rather than a man — but has yet to identify the treatments desired. Don’t expect them to come cheap.
Since it began handing out transgender-related treatments four years ago, the Administration for Children’s Services, which runs the city’s foster-care system, has granted four — two this year alone. A 21-year-old traveled to Pennsylvania in January for male-to-female sex-change operations, which were approved by ACS before the individual aged out of foster care at 21.
In April, Manhattan Supreme Court Justice Peter Moulton ordered that a 20-year-old in foster care get $46,000 in treatments, including a full genital “reassignment’’ and “facial feminization, tracheal shaving, breast augmentation and laser-hair removal.’’ ACS agreed to pay the bill. That means you pay. The agency is now considering forcing you to empty your pockets to finance two more cases.
How you pay for your own sex change depends upon where you live. While many private insurance companies don’t cover the surgeries, the District of Columbia and five states — California, Colorado, Oregon, Vermont and Connecticut — mandate that insurers pay for transgender treatments. (These aren’t covered under the Affordable Care Act — ObamaCare — or Medicaid and Medicare.)
I think it’s an outrage that the public must finance expensive operations for people who may be confused, distressed — or gaming the system. The trend will only get worse.
Furious over adding insult to Hillary’s injury
Former Mayor Mike Bloomberg really likes Hillary Rodham Clinton. He joined a host of Democrats and former Republican House Speaker Newt Gingrich in defending the former secretary of state last weekend against suggestions by GOP strategist Karl Rove that she suffered traumatic brain injury when she fainted, fell and sustained a concussion in 2012.
“I thought it was about as inappropriate a thing as you could say,” said Bloomberg, an independent, on CBS’ “Face the Nation,” calling avowed Democrat Clinton “a spectacular candidate.”
Clinton, who’ll be 69 in early 2017, would be the second-oldest person, after Ronald Reagan, to be sworn in as the nation’s commander-in-chief if she’s elected in 2016. She’ll need energy if she is to chase after her rascally husband, former President Bill Clinton, should he become the nation’s first first man.
The date debate
Bronx substitute teacher Cassandra Fiering, 45, was fired, said school investigators, after she asked four of her fourth-graders last year to role-play her boyfriends while she played herself — then asked the kids to help her choose between two guys in their 30s. The smarties picked the older of the men, who actually returned Fiering’s phone calls.
Fiering told The Post that she merely had a G-rated chat with kids about “relationships,’’ and she’s appealing the firing.
Don’t overshare with kids. Tell your problems to a licensed therapist.
Gift shop ‘imported’
Visiting the gift shop in the National September 11 Memorial & Museum, I was struck by the number of tacky items for sale that were manufactured outside the United States.
A small $16 plate adorned with the American flag was made in China. A $22 T-shirt emblazoned with a picture of the Survivor Tree, a pear tree rescued from Ground Zero, was made in El Salvador.
Thankfully, a $9.95 iPhone case was made in the US.
Some items are marked with the message that a portion of proceeds go to the memorial and museum, but a rep failed to get back to me with details. The musem/memorial/shopping bazaar can do better.
Old college lie
Danielle Shea, 22, feared that if her mom knew that she’d dropped out of Quinnipiac University in Connecticut, she’d cut her off financially.
So when Shea’s family showed up at the commencement ceremony Sunday, cops allege, she called in two bomb threats and tried to shut the thing down. She’s been criminally charged.
A better bet would have been to stay in school.