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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.
I get what you are saying. Certainly many do treat it as cosmetic. And insurance companies will do anything they can get away with to not pay for care, no matter who you are.
My counterpoint is that these people that are getting elective cosmetic treatments and surgeries to affirm their gender expression see that as important for themselves. But there is no way to justify that importance and not see that it is no where near as important to them as actual gender affirming care is to a trans person. To minimize or reject the later while choosing to seek the former is outrageous. That is the kind of hypocrisy that I'm saying can shine a light on the actual importance of trans healthcare.
Sorry. I cannot parse this sentence, it's a triple negative and I'm not sure what you're trying to say. My apologies.
Performative outrage perhaps. But anyone outraged at this shows they really haven't put in the time to understand or respect trans issues. This is the difference between real allyship and just putting pronouns in your bio. The difference between simply tolerance and actual respect and understanding. If you can't understand the difference between a trans person getting gender-affirming care and a random cis person just getting a nose job they want, well I have to say, you really don't understand trans people at all. Being trans is not just a quirky body mod people do for fun. This stuff kills people. This is life-saving medical care. I would be dead without the healthcare I received as part of my transition. I would literally be in the ground right now. To compare that healthcare to a random 18 year old who would just prefer her boobs be a little bigger is insulting.
I know it's tempting to ignore all nuance and just say, "everyone should get what they want. Love and rainbows. Looking at hard reality and real world limits are too difficult. I love everyone and just want everyone to be happy! #uwu" That's lazy liberal hugboxxing. Here in the real world, the hard truth is that insurance will never be able to pay for absolutely every cosmetic treatment people want. The difference is that trans healthcare has decades of research behind it showing that it greatly reduces suicide rates and directly saves lives. When a similar body of evidence exists to support cisgender access to an otherwise cosmetic treatment, I will consider them equivalent. Until then, you're directly hurting trans people by comparing the two.
Again, if you can show a treatment is similarly effective at preventing suicide in cis people as GAC is for trans people, I will consider them comparable. But if that isn't the case, it's trivializing and demeaning the life-saving care that many trans people rely on to literally keep living. It's the difference between someone taking ozempic because they're morbidly obese and will die if they don't take it, and someone taking it because they would like to lose ten pounds to fit in their summer swimsuit. Would it help both people to feel better about themselves? Sure. The already skinny person will have their well-being increase slightly. But to say the two situations are remotely comparable is insulting and outrageous. Same medicine. One is life-saving medical care, while the other is cosmetic. Nuance matters and we shouldn't take the lazy hug box approach and just say, "well I guess all the people who want this must be in the same boat!"
My point boiled down to the fact that someone cannot justify their stance that trans Healthcare isn't necessary while thinking their cosmetic care is. That those two things are not comparable in either importance or their life-saving outcomes. Again, I'm not reducing trans gender affirming healthcare down to cosmetic care by drawing the comparison to it. The point is that there is no comparison between them beyond the superficial.