Catholic Hospital Bars Transgendered Woman from Receiving Breast Surgery

The ever wonderful Roman Catholic Church which will do nothing to clean its own corrupt house of high clerics involved in the cover up of the sex abuse of minors sadly has sufficient time to set policies against its hospitals providing medical services to the transgendered. I wish Charlene Hastings luck in taking the hospital to court and challenging its discriminatory action. I also hope that in the process someone checks to determine whether or not the hospital has (1) received state or federal funds and/or (2) bond financing as a non-discriminatory non-profit. If the answer to either question is yes, then the hospital should be challenged on these fronts as well. Here are highlights from the San Jose Mercury (http://www.mercurynews.com/peninsula/ci_7889303?nclick_check=1):

"God made you a man." That's what Charlene Hastings said she was told when she called to inquire about breast enlargement surgery at Seton Medical Center, a Catholic hospital in Daly City. Now the San Franciscan is suing the hospital, claiming officials there discriminated against her because she had a sex-change operation.

Hastings, 57, had already had the major surgery she needed to become a woman. She had chosen a San Francisco plastic surgeon with privileges at Seton to perform the breast augmentation in October 2006. But the surgeon, Dr. Leonard Gray, told her that Seton no longer allowed him to operate on transgender patients, Hastings said.

When Hastings called Seton to learn more, a surgical coordinator said the hospital would not allow its facilities to be used for transgender surgery, according to the lawsuit, "She was saying, 'It's not God's will,' " Hastings said. "I couldn't believe it. It's a blatant case of discrimination." "This certainly isn't an isolated incident," said Kristina Wertz, legal director of the Transgender Law Center in San Francisco. "Seton and other hospitals in the area have put up significant barriers to care" for transgender people, she said.

The surgical coordinator was following hospital policy in refusing Hastings' surgery, said Elizabeth Nikels, vice president of communications for Daughters of Charity. Wertz thinks Seton's policy violates the Unruh Act, a state law that prohibits discrimination on the basis of gender, gender identity or sexual orientation. "There's simply no religious exemption in the Unruh Act," Wertz said. "We're talking about a type of care that's OK for one class but not another."

"This is a civil rights story," he said. "It is about transgender people being able to use businesses and other facilities on an equal basis as other people. If you took out 'transgender' in the lawsuit and replaced it with 'African-American,' this would be a no-brainer."