Dude Looks Like A Lady
Friday, March 18, 2005
By: John Losinger

Waste Watcher, March 2005

Rhiannon O’Donnabhain was recently granted a tax deduction for his/her sex reassignment surgery
(SRS). O’Donnabhain claimed that the sex-change operation was a medically necessary treatment for a psychological condition known as "gender dysphoria." It is estimated that SRS can cost up to $25,000 over the life of a patient to cover required medical costs, including initial surgery and the many years of hormonal therapy.

In February, 2005, Congressman Scott Garrett (R-N.J.), along with a number of other conservative Republicans, expressed their outrage over the Internal Revenue Service’s (IRS) recent tax deduction allowance for a sex-change operation. Garrett strongly urged IRS Commissioner Mark Everson to reconsider his decision and to provide an explanation of IRS policy surrounding medical tax deductions.

The IRS has never been an organization of efficiency, but this recent decision to allow tax dollars to fund sex-change surgeries is a brazen example of waste at its worst. It is not the responsibility of taxpayers to fund these operations. The IRS should rescind this decision and focus more of its energy on worthwhile endeavors such as improving tax collection, and helping explain the mind-numbing 60,000-plus page tax code to taxpayers.

Rep. Garrett argued, and rightly so, that the procedure is ostensibly cosmetic in nature and that IRS policy does not include "expenses that are merely beneficial to general health…..[including] any procedure that is directed at improving the patient’s appearance and does not meaningfully promote the proper function of the body or prevent illness or disease." "Gender dysphoria" is not a recognized medical condition and therefore should not be eligible for medical tax deductions.

Rep. Garrett further argues that the IRS decision to allow tax deductions for sex-change operations clearly falls "outside of an acceptable range of treatments." These deductions set a bad precedent for legitimate medical tax deductions and open the flood gates for other fringe "medical" procedures, all with taxpayers footing the bill.

This is not a moral question over whether these sex-change operations are right or wrong. It is a question of whether or not millions of taxpayers should have to pay for a procedure that serves a minute section of the population and is not widely accepted by the medical community. If the IRS granted tax deductions for all cosmetic surgeries, we would be a nation of very beautiful, very broke people.