A guide for on-campus care options and insurance coverage
Illustration by Monty Pear (@theMontyPear on Instagram).
In 2024, the UVSS announced that gender affirming care coverage is available through the undergraduate health and dental plan — but long wait times and a lack of awareness of available services creates unnecessary barriers.
The Gender Affirming Care Program through the Student Wellness Centre (SWC) has options for medical, surgical, and social gender affirming care, with nurses, counselors, and physicians available to support students.
Students who sign up for the program through their online form are added to a waitlist, and are contacted in chronological order. In a written statement to the Martlet, a UVic spokesperson said that “from the date that a student completes the online form, the wait time to initiate medical or surgical GAC can be up to one year.”
While the waitlist is currently full, students can still submit the online form and will be automatically added when a spot becomes available.
Students must be on the waitlist to access hormone readiness assessments and the possibility for a hormone replacement therapy (HRT) prescription, to restart HRT if they have been off it for over a year, and to get surgical referrals for procedures like top surgery, orchiectomy, and hysterectomy.
Without being added to the waitlist, students can access other services such as prescription refills, mental health support, learning how to safely inject hormones, and finding resources and services off-campus.
Under the UVSS Enhanced Health & Dental Plan, eligible undergraduate students also have access to two types of coverage: medical and legal.
Medical care through the UVSS’s insurance partner GreenShield covers up to $5 000 per eligible procedure, to a lifetime maximum of $10 000. Procedures covered by GreenShield in B.C. include facial feminization, tracheal shaving, laser/electrolysis hair removal, vaginal dilators, and vocal surgery.
In order to qualify, students must provide a gender dysphoria diagnosis from a qualified physician (MD) or nurse practitioner. Further, the expenses must not be covered by existing provincial health care, as GreenShield’s coverage is intended to supplement coverage from existing provincial health insurance.
The program can also connect students with a law firm for consultation services, including legal advice on gender and name changes. Students interested in legal assistance can fill out the online form and select Gender Affirmation Care as the request reason.
Following the addition of gender affirming care to the UVSS health plan, UVic’s Graduate Students Society (GSS) passed a referendum to add a similar policy to the graduate plan, led by Jitendra Palaparty, the GSS Director of External Relations.
In an interview with the Martlet, Palaparty explained that after learning about the gender affirming care for undergraduates, she noticed that although graduate students were paying more for their health plan, they did not have the same coverage.
A lack of awareness could be partially responsible for this lack of coverage. “Unfortunately [gender affirming care] seems to be something that a lot of people don’t seem to understand,” Palaparty said.
Through Pacific Blue Cross, graduate students have a lifetime maximum of $15 000 for eligible procedures, including tracheal shaving, electrolysis/laser hair removal, and vocal surgery. Unlike GreenShield, Pacific Blue Cross limits electrolysis/laser hair removal to the face and chest.
Like the UVSS plan, the coverage is intended to complement provincial health plans, and students must provide a diagnosis of gender dysphoria or gender incongruence from an approved practitioner.
Pacific Blue Cross also covers gender affirming products, which they define as “products that are medically necessary for the treatment of gender dysphoria or gender incongruence which are subject to our Benefit review process.”
Palaparty noted that one thing missing from both the UVSS and GSS health plans is coverage for fertility treatments such as sperm preservation or assisted fertility treatments like in vitro fertilization (IVF).
Although many procedures are covered, there are still barriers to accessing them, Palaparty said. “[Most procedures are] on the list, except [the coverage is] a very low amount, and really complicated to access.”
Access to gender affirming care is important for the well-being of many transgender, non-binary, and Two Spirit people. “It is literally life-saving medical care,” Palaparty said. “It is necessary exactly for the reason why any other life-saving medical care is necessary.”
