‘I mean no disrespect to anyone, but VA should not be focused on helping Veterans attempt to change their sex,’ VA Secretary Doug Collins said.
The U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs (VA) will no longer offer gender dysphoria treatment to new patients, officials said on March 17.
VA doctors are halting cross-sex hormone therapy for veterans with a diagnosis of gender dysphoria or symptoms of the condition, with an exception for veterans who were already receiving hormones from the VA or from the U.S. Department of Defense.
The VA will also stop providing services that it describes as designed to help veterans change their sex, including voice and communication training, chest binders, and wigs.
The VA has never offered sex change surgeries and will continue not to offer them, according to the department.
“I mean no disrespect to anyone, but VA should not be focused on helping Veterans attempt to change their sex. The vast majority of Veterans and Americans agree, and that is why this is the right decision,” VA Secretary Doug Collins
said in a statement. “All eligible Veterans—including trans-identified Veterans—will always be welcome at VA and will always receive the benefits and services they’ve earned under the law. But if Veterans want to attempt to change their sex, they can do so on their own dime.”
The VA provides medical care and other services for veterans. About 9.1 million veterans are currently enrolled in the VA’s health care system.
The VA estimates about 0.1 percent of those veterans identify as transgender.
The savings from the new changes will go towards helping severely injured veterans, according to the VA.
The department said it was adhering to President Donald Trump’s Jan. 20 executive order that
states the U.S. government’s policy is to recognize two sexes, male and female.
“These sexes are not changeable and are grounded in fundamental and incontrovertible reality,” Trump said in the order.
The announcement came after the VA rescinded Directive 1341, which was promulgated in 2018. The directive said in part that VA policy was to provide “clinically appropriate, comprehensive, Veteran-centered care with respect and dignity to enrolled or otherwise eligible transgender and intersex Veterans, including but not limited to hormonal therapy, mental health care, preoperative evaluation, and medically necessary post-operative and long-term care following gender confirming/affirming surgery.”
In the memorandum rescinding the directive, the VA
said that veterans who have a gender dysphoria diagnosis or symptoms “shall continue to receive comprehensive health care, which includes preventive and mental health care,” but emphasized that all others are not eligible for cross-sex hormones.
Rep. Mark Takano (D-Calif.), chairman of the Congressional Equality Caucus, was among the critics of the new moves.
He
said in a statement that ending cross-sex hormones for many veterans amounted to “unilaterally restricting medical care for transgender veterans, ignoring the clinical judgment of the VA providers that have prescribed this care and the expertise of all the major medical associations in the United States that support this care.”
Others welcomed the developments.
“The VA shouldn’t be a battlefield in the Left’s war on truth. There are two God-given genders with unique needs and differences that don’t disappear or reverse at the whim of woke bureaucrats,” Rep. Mike Bost (R-Ill.), chairman of the House Veterans Affairs Committee,
said on the social media platform X. “We are fortunate to have a president like Donald Trump who isn’t afraid to restore common sense at the VA and refocus the agency 100% on serving the needs of America’s veterans.”
