As a trans person, I still get really uneasy when I hear people comparing cis cosmetic treatment to gender-affirming care for trans folks. It always seems trivializing to the struggles trans people face and the deep need trans people often have for these treatments.

The problem with equating cis cosmetic treatments to trans gender-affirming care is that you’re then implicitly arguing that trans treatments are cosmetic. Yet trans rights activists have had to fight for decades to stop insurance companies from considering trans care as “cosmetic” and to recognize it for the life-saving reconstructive treatments that they are. Comparing GAC to cis cosmetic treatments directly hurts trans people’s ability to access medicine.

Comparing SRS to a cis gal getting breast augmentation is implicitly playing into the hands of bigots that have always labeled trans care as cosmetic.

Trans rights advocates have had to argue for decades that trans medical care isn’t like a cis person getting a boob or nose job. They’ve had to argue that trans care is more like the kind of serious reconstructive medicine you get after a severe car crash. If trans care is no different from a cis person getting a nose job, then there’s no reason for trans care to be covered by insurance.

Unless the cisgender “gender affirming care” you’re citing is commonly paid for by insurance, you are directly harming trans interests whenever you make this kind of comparison.

That’s humanity. Reaching towards the stars while buried to their waist in the mud.