Part 2: Ontario taxpayers are flying a man to Texas for penile-preserving vaginoplasty. But who is he?
A man asked the Ontario Health Insurance Plan (OHIP) to cover an experimental cosmetic genital surgery, and the province refused. The man appealed, and won. Now, Ontarian taxpayers are paying to fly the man to Austin, Texas to get the surgery.
In Part 1 of this article, we went over the details of his hearing before the Health Services Appeal and Review Board. In this installment, we’re going to review what we know about the man himself.
Part 2: /u/jotspot on Reddit
The mysterious KS, who is unnamed in the official legal proceedings, has bragged about his successful appeal under the username /u/jotspot in a subreddit called /r/salmatian. The subreddit describes “salmatian” as “an altersex identity defined by having a desire for a mixed genital set. It can also be referred to as bigenital, with the most common presentation being a desire for both a penis and a vagina.”
In an Appendix at the end of this post, I will include archives of all of the posts KS made on Reddit about his OHIP appeal (there are 12 in total), as well as a general archive of all of his Reddit comments and a selective archive of his Reddit posts, but for now, let’s dive into a meta analysis of his activity.
Meta Analysis
At the time of writing this article, the /u/jotspot account has existed for 5 years, 2 months, and 2 days, has made over 1000 comments, 654 submissions, and has 65,533 comment karma. His Reddit bio reads:
Nonbinary aspie, disability advocate, [NeverGrewUp]. Enjoy: [trading card game]s, anime, gardening, baking, games. May disappear at times b/c of bipolar.
An analysis with the reddit-user-analyzer app reveals that his frequented subreddits include those for autism, aspergers, OCD, psychosis, bipolar disorder, depression, ADHD, and anxiety. Additionally included are the subreddits “nevergrewup” which describes itself as “a place for people who grew up on the outside but still feel like a child mentally (age dysphoria) to discuss, understand and help each other” and “ADBL” which stands for “adult baby diaper lovers.” Subreddits that he frequents related to gender identity theory include MtF, traaNSFW (for sexualized memes), asktransgender, Transgender_Surgeries, AskMtFHRT, transontario, NonBinary, and the aforementioned salmacian.
Analysis by redditmetis shows that he posts infrequently between the hours of 04:00 and 12:00, when he is presumably sleeping, but otherwise is active at all times of day and during all of the days of the week.
It’s impossible to share all of KS’ Reddit activity in this article, so I have selected a few posts and excerpts that will help give readers a better understanding of who he is, how he thinks, and what his life is like.
Selected Reddit Posts
Excessively obsessed with incontinence and ABDL this week... Like over-the-top. Am I going crazy? • 13 Oct 2018 • r/[AdultBabyDiaperLover]
But lately I've gotten really interested in things … Even things I would never do and regret and it's dumb - like wearing a really used diaper out shopping (and even wanting to make it leak) - which was kind of dumb thinking about it, especially since when I got there it was like, meh why am I doing this and wandered away and never went in
I'd like to selectively choose to wet my diaper in bed, but afraid of sliding into legitimate bedwetting... • 02 Mar 2020 • r/ADBL
As someone who gets up to pee 1-2 times every single night, and has had legitimate sleepwetting "hiccups" in the past (mostly from medications and oddly "post-sex bedwetting" if that makes sense), it gives me anxiety to want to use my diaper at night for fear of "forgetting" or "not paying attention" enough to wake up or something on another day.
Any other Transgender Babies / Littles who are exclusively attracted to diapers? • 27 May 2020 • r/ADBL
Kind of just wondering if this is a forever thing, or if like once I get my gender issues sorted, maybe there might be more because it's so clouded by the gender complication.
I'm going to be very seriously working to resolve the gender side in the very near future (COVID gives you a lot of time to think)...
It is almost like theres 2 entire sides. One that likes the concept of diapers/incontinence, and then the Little/AB side entirely separate. Hell I even wear different diapers for each situation.
Seriously, is this normal to cry from HRT nearly every single day of the month? • 07 Nov 2020 • r/MtF
This can't be the normal expectation can it? I cry in bed for hours sometimes. Other times I wake up crying.
I think HRT may have made me *literally* bipolar. Is it permanent? Normal? • 12 Dec 2020 • r/AskMtFHRT
At first I just thought - "mood swings", adjustment whatever, right? ... and then I spent the last 2 days in what appears to be actual hypomania.
How can I prevent Power of Attorney for Personal Care from ever going to my family? • 19 Jan 2021 • r/legaladvicecanada
I was emancipated as a child at 15 due to abuse. I'm in Ontario. I don't want to give them the chance to have that control again.
Can Psychosis or Medication cause ADHD symptoms? • 10 Sep 2021 • r/Psychosis
I was never properly assessed for ADHD as a kid, but they've always suspected it and I'm actually soon to be assessed as an adult. But in the meantime I've recently found a massive deterioration in my ability to concentrate. … I'm wondering if there's a connection to my previous psychosis episodes or the medication I'm on (Risperidone).
Just found out my DBT therapist used to be my high school bully! It's tearing me apart... It's so screwed up! • 16 Sep 2021 • r/BorderlinePDisorder
I was technically diagnosed 10 years ago and fought the BPD label, then another doctor speculated I have BPD this year but didn't have enough sessions to diagnose me... I also have Bipolar so I always thought it was unlikely to have both BP and BPD at the same time.
HRT+transition didn't go well, but I don't want to be a guy....I really need advice! • 08 Feb 2022 • r/MtF
I transitioned 05/2020, and went on HRT 08/2020.... I have been literally mental since then. I feel backed into a corner, and I don't know what to do....
I'm being forced to keep taking HRT if I want to get approval for orchi. HRT makes me psychotically depressed
I added progesterone recently to try to help boobs along.... which has made me even more mentally unstable.
My therapist wants me to quit regressing....to substitute "adult" behaviours. • 09 Feb 2022 • r/ABDL
It's complex, but I'm a [diaper lover] for fetish reasons, but I regress to a "little" age for therapeutic reasons, and I have a permanently middle/teen mentality too when not actually regressed.
TLDR; I am autistic and consider myself mentally a young teen unregressed (which is half my real age), and 3-8 years old while regressed.
Will I go to hell if I choose to get euthanized? • 19 Sep 2022 • r/OpenChristian
This has been on my mind for months. … I have both physical and mental health problems which are permanent. I have been let down greatly by the medical community, but even if they resolved some things I can't see it being worth it to endure if life is nothing but isolated existence. I often pray that I don't wake up. I live in Canada and will be eligible for euthanasia soon, and I just don't know...
I just had an orchidectomy 2 days ago. Ask me anything! • 15 Oct 2022 • r/MtF
I had Dr Brassard in Montréal at GRS Montréal. I am very much still in recovery and I'm not feeling super good, so I'll answer as I can
Is it normal to hear the occasional whispering? • 20 Oct 2022 • r/bipolar
It used to be directly connected to my moods, but now... it sometimes just happens. It's pretty uncommon, but sometimes I'm so stressed I just hear something.
Sometimes if I understand them, it's just my name being called over and over or a simple phrase. I find the whispers a bit more scary than the outright talking though.
Who does the funeral arrangements for a dead orphan? • 12 Dec 2022 • r/NoStupidQuestions
For context, I am emancipated from my biological family for most of my life, and I've been wondering who deals with things when I'm gone?
I lost my health card twice and suddenly my NP wants to get me diagnosed with ADHD for some reason? • 12 Dec 2022 • r/adhd_anxiety
I was diagnosed with General Anxiety Disorder like 10 years ago and I knew I was neurodivergent for like 15 years without diagnosis…
Psychologist comes back with "you have ASD," but that they couldn't dual diagnose simply because everything is explainable by ASD alone.
Does ODSP pay special diet if you are underweight besides anorexia? • 12 Jan 2023 • r/Odsp
I have struggled to maintain weight for the last 2 years, primarily due to mental illness and being inconsistently able to care for myself.
What on earth causes minor fecal incontinence? Now there's no warning... • 20 Feb 2023 • r/Incontinence
I was dealing the last couple of years with very minor bladder issues and then eventually I started having very minor infrequent #2 problems, with a small amount of leakage.
I know it's not "left behind" because I have very severe OCD and have a shower after every single #2 (which is very time consuming and distressing for me).
What non-CBT treatments exist for us? • 09 Mar 2023 • r/OCD
I failed CBT a few years ago...and was traumatized and it made my OCD worse. I will never do CBT again. But I do want to know if there is something else I can do? I want there to be another option besides euthanasia.
What do transpeople do, who can't handle the extreme emotions of HRT? Especially when they aren't seeing transition results? • 23 Mar 2023 • r/asktransgender
I am autistic and have emotional disregulation. I am also naturally mentally ill and have extreme emotions to start with, but it was all kind of muted before HRT. I can't go back on T because that's dysphoria inducing, but I can't handle E either…E is too intense for me mentally.
But it's been several months since my orchi, and nothing has changed for the positive.
PS: I can't take progesterone either. I am not allowed, because when I did a year ago I ended up psychotic and attempting suicide, so I'm banned for life.
Where's the line between "psychotic" and "psychosis"? • 25 Mar 2023 • r/psychosis
Is it once I no longer realize voices aren't real? Cuz hearing things isn't unusual for me. It's frightening but I usually can tell it's not real. Where's the line here?
I have very serious gender dysphoria about the size of my feet. Does anyone know places I can get them reduced? • 10 Jun 2023 • r/asktransgender
I don't like my feet this size. I know this surgery exists…it's usually done for cosmetic reasons, but for me it's literally because of dysphoria.
It is such a painful reminder for me when I literally am forced to wear guy shoes all the time. It's not who I am! And I would add, my feet aren't even good for the size of my body/legs either. So I really need this, and it's just as important to me as tracheal shave. I think the hair situation was my biggest dysphoria before, and now it's moved on to other parts, now that other things can come into focus.
The long short of it is KS (a.k.a. /u/jotspot) — the man who Ontario taxpayers are sending to Texas for experimental genital surgery — has myriad psychiatric problems, which he claims have been exacerbated by the hormones prescribed as part of his “gender transition,” is on disability and struggles to care for himself, is incontinent, and in addition to his “gender dysphoria” claims to have “age dysphoria” and a mental age of “11-13.”
Conclusion
When I began exploring KS’ Reddit history in chronological order, I was initially disgusted by the salacious fetish content, but as I read through more of his posts, I began to genuinely pity him. It’s clear that KS is severely mentally unwell and has been struggling to cope with daily life for years. I doubt the man himself would dispute this characterization.1 And while I admit that I’m not a trained medical professional, I struggle to see in what possible way cutting peritoneal tissue out of this man’s abdominal cavity to line a hole carved into his pelvic floor is in any way ethical, moral, or sane — let alone therapeutic.2
But this tragedy of human mutilation and medical abuse is predictable, if you understand how gender identity theory affects those who believe in it. It makes sense that a neuro-atypical man who, in his words, “never grew up” would struggle to see himself fulfilling masculine sex stereotypes. I’m not surprised that he has latched onto gender identity theory as one way to explain why he doesn’t seem to fit in as either a man or a woman. Because “gender transition” is sold as a way to live as your “true self,” it’s reasonable that people like KS assume pursuing it will mitigate their mental health concerns. And when commencing down the “gender transition” pathway fails to mitigate them (or in fact, exacerbates them), it is not surprising that someone who describes himself as having OCD and extreme emotions would latch on to more and more physical features as sources of “dysphoria” that need to be cured through surgical interventions before he will feel whole. KS is correct when he says he has been let down greatly by the medical community — and not only in the ways he thinks.
Gender identity theory holds that skeptical inquiry and differential diagnosis are abusive. If a man with KS’ psychiatric history believed he had an “animal identity” of an elephant, and his lack of a trunk did not align with his sense of self, no sane medical professional would conclude that an appropriate course of treatment would be fashioning a makeshift appendage meant to aesthetically approximate a trunk using tissues harvested from elsewhere in his body. Similarly, KS’ genuinely held beliefs about his own “age dysphoria” are not something that any doctor would consider a valid justification for surgical or chemical interventions to make his body align with his self-perception, simply because there is not widespread metaphysical belief in an individualized “temporal identity” distinct from one’s true age. And yet, because many members of the medical profession have been taken in by an extremist metaphysical belief system that posits a sexed soul, the fact that this man has delusions related to his genital anatomy has become justification for prescribing a surgical procedure which will create a non-functional3 structure that is not part of human anatomy, just like a makeshift trunk.
This is what institutional capture by ideological extremism looks like. All of the elements of this case — the HSRAB panel referring to an activist pamphlet which asserts the necessity of “individually-customized” aesthetic surgical requests, surgeons ostensibly treating psychological disorders by creating non-functional and non-anatomical structures out of harvested tissue — represent gender identity theory taken to its absurd conclusions. And now, it seems, the Ontario taxpayers are on the hook to foot the bill. The clarity of hindsight for these 21st century lobotomies cannot come soon enough.
Appendix A: The Reddit Archives
PDFs of comment list and selected archived posts
/r/salmation OHIP saga:
So I am fighting my decline for coverage in Ontario and will keep you updated - part of their defence is actual transphobia imo! I will try to keep you all updated!
For anyone following my Appeal to the Health Service Review Board in Ontario, I have another update!
UPDATE: Regarding my Ontario Health Insurance case (for those following this precedent-setting case)
UPDATE 3 of Appeal for Ontario Health Insurance Coverage
UPDATE 4 of OHIP Appeal: WE GOT THEM ON THE ROPES!!! Can anyone here help me locate ANY studies that show satisfaction rates for Vaginoplasty without penectomy?
UPDATE 5 of OHIP Appeal: Everything is public now, so I can provide everything now. Wish me luck in the hearing!
UPDATE 6 of OHIP Appeal: Now they are trying to DELAY proceedings!
UPDATE 7 of OHIP Appeal: I can't believe there is another!... but there is and it sucks :(
UPDATE 8: ...12 hrs till the hearing in my appeal
UPDATE 9: Day 1 of OHIP hearings done. Highlights.
UPDATE 10 of OHIP Appeal: POSITIVE PROGRESS in Cross-Examination, but it's now a waiting game...
UPDATE 11: I WON!!! APPEAL TO HSARB FOR OHIP APPROVAL WAS SUCCESSFUL!!!
UPDATE 12: For anyone who wants a copy of the HSARB decision it's live on Canlii!
Though he would likely dispute my characterization of him as a “man” due to his belief that he has a gender identity and a psychological age of 11-13.
There are also reasonable concerns to be had as to whether someone with severe mental health concerns will be able to adequately dilate his perineal hole to prevent it from closing, and appropriately maintain its hygiene.
Unless, of course, the only function that matters is having a hole to shove things into.
This shit is wild!