The Pentagon has spent nearly $8 million to treat more than 1,500 transgender troops since 2016, including 161 surgical procedures, according to data obtained by USA TODAY.
As of Feb. 1, 1,071 service members have been diagnosed with gender dysphoria in the Army, Navy, Air Force, Marine Corps, Coast Guard and Public Health Service on active duty and in the reserve force.
Most of them are senior enlisted personnel, but there are 20 senior officers – majors and lieutenant commanders and higher – as well.
Overall, the troops represent a fraction of the total force of 2.1 million. The number of transgender troops serving who have not sought treatment through the military is not known.
Transgender troops and their medical and psychological treatment has been a flash point for controversy since President Donald Trump tweeted in July 2017 that he wanted to ban them from the military. In January, the question reached the Supreme Court, which ruled that a modified ban could take effect while lower court challenges continued.
On Wednesday, the House Armed Services Committee will hear testimony on the military’s policy, which bans most troops with a diagnosis of gender dysphoria.
Democrats, including House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, have blasted the Pentagon policy as bigoted. She invited transgender troops to Trump’s State of the Union address this month.
Through Feb. 1, the cost of treating troops with the diagnosis of gender dysphoria has totaled $7,943,906.75. That included 22,992 psychotherapy visits, 9,321 prescriptions for hormones and 161 surgical procedures. Surgeries performed included 103 breast reductions or mastectomies, 37 hysterectomies, 17 “male reproductive” procedures and four breast augmentations. Psychotherapy sessions cost nearly $5.8 million and surgery cost more than $2 million, according to the data.
Wednesday’s hearing is scheduled to be held before the House Armed Services Committee’s panel on personnel, chaired by Rep. Jackie Speier, D-Calif. She has been a vocal critic of the Trump administration’s efforts to exclude transgender people from serving in the military.
Full story at USA Today.
Given the sacrifice these soldiers have made for our country, I’d say it’s a bargain.
The military is not supposed to be a stage for degenerate social experimentation. Unfortunately it has become one.
These soldiers sacrificed the morality of our country.
What sacrifices? How would you know the transgender soldiers had made sacrifices?
You are kidding, right? Every soldier makes sacrifices every damned day for you ane me and our freedom.
YFC, this is ultimate goal of people like you and Mike M. Where your social and political ideologies can be forced up the rest of the society, and every aspect.
I am a Veteran of the United States Army and I declare that then President Barak Obama has made a mockery of the U.S. and the Military. At war men and women must be at the top of their game at all times and alert at all times. What happens when they take their medication and have a adverse reaction? The DSM-5 has classified it as a disorder. We have live ammo and I need to know my squad has my back the same as I have theirs. Now, as a Christian and a Pastor it is morally wrong on all levels and it is S-I-N Go back and read History and tell me what Sodom was like and tell me why Lot’s wife was turned to a pillar of salt! Don’t you think we are living in the days of Sodom today?
Amen, YFC. Let those with active duty discharge papers cast the first stone. Bone spurs anyone??
Stuff and nonsense. We’re obligated as Catholics to speak out on sin and immorality at all times.
Should I not speak out against abortion because I don’t have a uterus and never gave birth to a child?
mike m,
For the record, I responded to YFC and I have my DD214.
YFC,
If someone’s confused about their gender, the military needs to stand-up and recommend psychotherapy to resolve their difficulties. Instead, the military is acting like an enabling co-dependent and seeking to keep people in their defense mechanisms.
The military is not serving these people very well.
Steve, for some reason, my response to you was not published. The military has provided tens of thousands of hours of psychotherapy to these individuals. In fact, that is the bulk of the cost in the headline, as evidenced by the article itself. It’s the job of the therapist to determine whether there is confusion about the gender of the person, and only then, if there is no confusion, to recommend harmonal and surgical therapies. No one understands the genesis of transgenerism, but until we do, this is the recommended course of treatment and usually results in a better soldier.
YFC,
Yes, I’ve also had responses that never published and understand your frustration.
Regarding transgenderism, I would think that the only case where it might be fine to contradict the XX or XY chromosomes with hormonal/surgical procedures would be the case were the XX/XY chromosomes have gone haywire.
On the other hand, if a body is definitely either XX or XY, it’s clear that the problem is with the brain/mind or malfunctioning glands. The solution, therefore, would be to repair the brain/mind or the haywire glands. If such repairs aren’t effective, then that’s the best current medicine can do. A sex change operation would take a pathology and introduce another pathology.
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This would be consistent with the Natural Law whereby the human body is considered to flourish if used according to the way how it was designed.
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Just because you can’t visualize in a microscope the cause of a situation doesn’t mean that the situation doesnt exist. A person with a deviated septum doesn’t have a chromosomal abnormality yet by your logic, the person shouldn’t be treated. A person with depression may have a genetical predisposition that you can’t see. Would you deny them treatment?
YFC,
We might be mis-communicating. Essentially, I was saying that we have to treat a problem at the pathological source. Further, we shouldn’t take a healthy body part and change it into something which it is not.
In the case of gender dysphoria when a person has a healthy set of XX or XY chromosomes, the problem is in the mind or possibly with a hormone imbalance. The problem isn’t with healthy genitalia.
YFC why is it that you believe everything from the LGBT crowd needs to be enforced on every other person no matter what the circumstance is..
I never agreed to the expenditure of one dollar for transgender anything. A soldier is a soldier and should be fit to fulfill the duties needed to protect this Country and its interests. President Trump was correct to ban “transgender” troops.
But why is this news issue even in CCD? Public tax treatment of “gender dysphoria” in the military is not a Catholic issue (is it?).
Exactly, this is being done in order to destroy out military. Any man could enter the military as a man and decide he wanted to be a woman to get easier duty or to have access to women or for any number of wrong reason. It is the body parts and the DNA that determines if a man is a man or a woman is a woman, not just because a person says so.
Correction to first line: our military.
If one wanted easier duty, all one would have to do is not enter the military. Who would go through hormonal treatments and surgeries – permanent surgeries – just to get an “easier job” for a few years? Besides which you forget that there are people who entered military service as women and transition to become male soldiers. QED
And I never agreed to the expenditure of one dollar for a silly wall.
Morality IS an issue for CCD. Transgender should be an issue for every religion.
The horrible part is that this money is being taken away from those who truly deserve it. Money meant to help rehabilitate men and women who have actually lost a limb or limbs or have been seriously injured is now used to mutilate people who can never really change their sex. It is just insane and criminal that this is being done.
Steve Seitz, so do I have a DD214, Anchors Aweigh.
mike m,
I wasn’t in the navy: I was in the army. :)
Anyone confused about their gender is not fit for military service.
I agree! Service to your country should not include a free sex change operation, for a person with the mental illness of gender dysphoria. No one’s body should be mutilated like that! Instead—- transgenders need counseling to adjust as best they can, to the gender they actually are. They need guidance to apply for an appropriate type of service.
how about a military made up
exclusively of transgender???
Money well wasted. “Transgenderism” is from the pit of hell and the US military, good as they are, is not equipped to battle that enemy.