Following is a summary of this USA Today article:
Starting this first week of October, the government will pay for gender reassignment treatments and surgeries for soldiers, with an estimated expense between $2.4 million to $8.4 million per year.
The RAND Corporation conducted a study showing that there are between 1,320 and 6,630 transgender troops in the active duty force of 1.3 million, and of those troops between 30 and 40 would like hormone treatment, and 25 to 30 would seek surgery.
The policy of the Defense Department is if a service member’s ability to serve is hindered by a “medical condition or medical treatment related to their gender identity,” they will be treated, but the commander must approve the timing of the medical treatment.
Starting October 3, the military health program will cover therapy and hormone treatments for Tricare beneficiaries, and gender reassignment surgeries for active-duty personnel will be conducted either at military hospitals, or if not available there it will be provided at a private hospitals paid by Tricare.
Ron Crews, executive director of Chaplain Alliance for Religious Liberty, said it is a wasteful allocation of money since soldiers undergoing treatments or surgeries are unqualified for deployment for extended periods of time. “I think this is a gross misuse of military medical dollars that should be used to make our military forces deployable or to help those who are wounded or injured while they are deployed,” he said.
The RAND corporation says hormone therapy doesn’t require a designated recovery time, but reassignment surgeries can leave soldiers non-deployable for up to 135 days in the case of male-to-female genital surgery, and 6 to 20% of those receiving “vaginoplasty” surgery may have complications.
Aaron Belkin, director of the Palm Center, a public policy think tank, says the actual costs of the surgeries would be lower due to it mitigating serious conditions that impose costs such as suicidality.
Currently at least five transgender troops are seeking treatment outside the military health care system, including one seeking sex-reassignment surgery. Three are sailors or Marines, and the other two are airmen.
The Army recently assured “Chelsea” [previously Brad] Manning, who is serving a 35-year prison sentence for leaking national security secrets, that they would pay for his gender reassignment surgery while he’s in prison.