More Tax News

Quelle coincidence! Last week, I metioned Rhiannon O'Donnahbain's fight to claim her SRS and related expenses as IRS deductions. Back in 2007, after losing her case, she filed an appeal. Finally, the other day, a US Tax Court ruled in her favor, saying, in essence that Gender Identity Disorder is actually a debilitating disease and the surgery and other transition-related treatments are necessary to cope with it.

I first learned of this decision from the blogs of A.E. Brain and Diana. (You can read the decision on this PDF file.) Soon afterward, I called the IRS to find out whether I could file the same deduction on my tax returns. The rep with whom I spoke admitted that she didn't know about the decision until I called; that's probably true for any number of other tax professionals. However, she promised to talk to one of their specialists in medical deductions and her supervisor to find out not only whether I can take the deduction this year, but also what documentation I will need to do so.

One commentator said that the ruling will not only put trans people on a more equal footing with everyone else; it could pave the way for having the surgery and related treatments covered under medical insurance. That may well be, and I hope it comes true for the trans people following me. To my knowledge, the only insurance that covers most or all of the cost are the policies given to employees of San Francisco city and county, and the state of Minnesota.

Speaking of money: I am so happy that Ms. O'Donnahbain fought and got her settlement. However, I wonder how much time and money she invested in lawyers: After all, the latest verdict has come almost a decade after she had her surgery.

Well, I guess it was a good thing I didn't start to do my taxes last weekend. And it's kind of ironic to hope that the IRS contacts me soon. But, stranger things happen all the time.

Trannies, Trains and Creativity

Today my long-lost cousin called. Well, actually, he's newly-found, as I am to him. You see, near the end of August, he and I met for the first time since I was about ten years old and he was in his 20's. So you might say that each of us changed a bit. That tends to happen to people when you don't see them for 40 years.

Ironically, through all those years, he'd been living just a few neighborhoods away from where I live now. In fact, I pass his house, more or less, on my way to work.

Anyway, he made an interesting proposition: In late March and early April, he's driving to Nevada. Like me, he won't be working during that week, which is Spring Recess for the school system and the college. So, he thought, I might be interested. And he'd like the company.

So far I've enjoyed his company. And, after all, he's a relative. Also, I've never crossed the continent on the ground. I sometimes think I'd like to pedal coast-to-coast, but I never had any fantasies of driving across the country. Then again, I might enjoy the ride with him.

He's going to Nevada, so it won't quite be a coast-to-coast trip. His mission: To retrieve a set of electric trains that he had as a boy. It's currently with another cousin who lives out there. They found out that to properly pack and insure the trains and related accessories for shipping, it would cost several hundred dollars. So, my cousin reasons, it makes sense to go out there and fetch them. Plus, he doesn't have to worry about whether my other cousin will pack them properly or what will happen to them in transit. They probably would be worth something to a collector, but the sentimental value is equally important.

Well, I said, I'm happy he asked. But Marilynne and her daughter have talked about coming up this way during that time. And, if they didn't, I was thinking of going to see my parents. But if it doesn't look like either of those things will happen, I'll go.

I don't recall the train set he's talking about, but if I saw it, I might. It seems that when I was growing up, everyone--or at least my relatives--had electric trains snaking around Christmas presents and dioramas of Currier and Ives-like Christmas Village scenes. Young boys always seemed to be fascinated with the trains: putting them together, assembling the track and all of the stuff that went with them, and of running the trains. I was, too. There was even a time I wanted to be a train engineer. But I think it had as much to do with those cool caps the engineers always wore, and the places those trains went, in the movies or on TV as it had to do with actually piloting a train--which was appealing in and of itself. I used to love riding trains with my grandfather, and he was always happy to take me for a trip on one.

Somewhere along the way, I lost my desire--however naive--to become a train engineer and my fascination with electric trains. In fact, I sold the set of Lionels I had as a kid to help pay for my first year at Rutgers. Kids who keep their fascination with model railroads and grow into men who keep up their boyhood train fantasies almost always become interested in the mechanical and engineering aspects of trains and railroading. I never did. In fact, I wasn't terribly technically oriented: I can fix bicycles but I never could handle anything much more complex. And, these days, with my limited time, I'd rather pay someone to do a major repair. I also don't tinker with my bikes the way I once did: When I have time, I'd rather ride, write, read or meet a friend.

A lack of interest and aptitude for mechanical and technical things is supposed to be a female trait. So is a lack of interest in, or even a fear of, math and science. I'll admit that somewhere in the morass of trigonometry and calculus, I was left in the digital dust. I find science interesting to the extent that I understand it, which was less and less every year that I was in school.

So, if those are such stereotypically female traits. why are so many male-to-female transsexuals --at least, so many of the ones I hear about--in scientific and technical fields? I've learned of transgendered rocket scientists (see Amanda Simpson and "A.E.Brain"), computer scientists and engineers. Rhiannon O' Donnahbain, whom I mentioned yesterday, is an engineer. So is Nancy Jean Burkholder, who was barred from attending the Michigan Womyn's Music Festival in 1990. Another transgendered engineer is Sabrina Marcus Taraboletti, who started "Morning Glow" (the predecessor of The Morning After House in Trinidad, CO). Sabrina, for whom the room in which I stayed at the Morning After House is named, describes herself as a "gear head."

I don't know why so many male-to-female (MTF) transgenders are in scientific and technical fields. Some might say they were "overcompensating" or trying to show that they were "really men" until they accepted themselves. The same explanation is given for MTFs who were cops, fighter pilots and in any number of stereotypically masculine fields before transitioning. I even have explained my participation in sports in the same way. However, I think that even though it may be true for some MTFs, it's not the whole story.

I suspect that another reason why MTFs like the ones I've mentioned become rocket scientists and engineers and such is that such fields are, in their own ways, creative. In other words, they require the ability to solve problems by "thinking outside the box." That, I believe, is something women have to do more often than men realize and that we, as transgender women, have to do in order to become ourselves.

Also, because those fields are creative in the way I just mentioned, they encompass both "left brain" and "right brain" skills. If one continually has to bridge those parts of the brain, it's not a stretch, really, to transverse the gap between genders. In other words, if someone is female but has to live as male, it's not such a leap--for someone with mathematical and scientific aptitude--to be a rational, scientific person who operates, in effect, as an artist. Or vice-versa.

That makes me think of something Marci says: that she sees herself as an artist first. That, she believes, is what enables her to perform genital reassignment and reconstruction surgeries that result in such realistic-looking (and -functioning) genitalia.

Now, I'm not a scientist. So make what you will of the things I've just said. It's the best explanation I can offer for now. Meanwhile, I'm going to think about taking that trip with my cousin so that he can retrieve his electric trains.

No Deduction, Just My Life

"Can you deduct that?"

If you live in the USA and you've been reading this blog, you know what that question refers to. "That" is the cost of my surgery and the question refers to my tax return.

Someone asked me that question and that led me to do some research. I suspected the answer was "no," but I figured it would be worth checking out.

Alas, my suspicions have been confirmed. Even though someone challenged the IRS on this question a couple of years ago, their rule--or, more precisely, the way they interpret and implement their rule--hasn't changed.

Actually, one transgender woman argued that the cost of her treatments was deductible under the IRS guidelines. Rhiannon O'Donnahbain, from what I understand, is still appealing the verdict that said she couldn't. The IRS claims that sex reassignment surgery (SRS) is a cosmetic procedure, and that such procedures are deductible only if it is necessary "to improve a disfigurement related to a congenital abnormality, disfiguring disease or accidental injury." (I found this in J.K. Lasser's Your Income Tax, 2009-2010. Who knew that transitioning would lead me to reading stuff like that late at night, when I should be getting my beauty sleep!)

Anyway...Considering what a small percentage of the population we are, those of us diagnosed with Gender Identity Disorder have a "congenital abnormality," in the strictest sense of the word. That our bodies don't reflect our gender identities sounds something like a disfigurement, if you ask me. If you are among the great majority of people who never has to think about whether you are an "F" or an "M," and simply cannot imagine being anything but whichever one you were identified by, try to think of what it would be like if your genitals--indeed, your body--did not match your identity. I'm not talking about wanting to be better-looking or stronger or whatever; I am talking about what, for most people, is the most basic component of their identities--which, of course, is exactly the reason why most of you, and most of them, never have to think about it.

To put SRS, and the prerequisite treatments, in the same category as liposuction, Botox treatments or breast implants (which, by the way, the IRS allowed an exotic dancer to deduct) is ludicrous. But that is what the court's decision in Ms. O'Donnabhain's case does. She says that the treatments and surgery saved her life; I would say the same for my own treatments, surgery and life. Just about any other trans person would say the same thing. In fact, of the trans people who don't transiton, nearly one in three commit suicide. That statistic includes two friends of mine. It might've included me, too. As it happened, I abused alcohol and other substances in my youth and went through a series of relationships that didn't work because, in essence, I was trying to relate as someone I wasn't. Plenty of other trans people have similar stories. If the treatments and surgery put an end to those problems, how could they not fit into the IRS, or any other, guidelines?

Today I am still astounded at how decades of depression and self-loathing ended literally overnight when I started my transition and how my mental health has improved from there as a result of my surgery. Of course, that's way better and more important than any deduction the IRS will or won't allow: as far as I know, such a deduction, while good to have and a signal of fair and equal treatment under the law, is not itself a reason or purpose for living.

So, for now, I can only say something like c'est la vie to not having a deduction. I don't have the time or resources to challenge that; I hope that someone else will and that future trans people will have that deduction and other things that would make us equal, under the law, to everyone else. For now, I am happy to have had the operation, and will try start the support group for transgenders 45 or older that I have discussed with Tom at SAGE, and to help Dwayne with the shelter he wants to open for homeless lesbians and trans women. Those are the sorts of things you do when you're a "lover, not a fighter," but have been forced to be an advocate and activist.

So...no deduction. At least I have what I can't deduct, and the life it is giving me.