A pro-LGBTQ+ advocacy group is suing the government for not giving “transgender” veterans health coverage for irreversible, life-altering sex reassignment surgery.
According to NBC News, the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs (VA) covers “almost all transition-related care” for veterans. This includes services like fertility preservation, hair removal treatments, voice training, and hormone therapy. The VA does not cover “top surgery,” such as a mastectomy, or “bottom surgery” for veterans.
Since 2016, transgender veterans filed a petition for the agency to change its policies to cover these procedures (via NBC):
The Transgender American Veterans Association, or TAVA, formed in 2003, filed a petition in May 2016 asking the VA to start a rulemaking process to amend its health benefits to cover gender-confirmation surgery for trans veterans. In the almost eight years since, the VA has not responded to or denied the petition, despite agency officials saying publicly over the years that the department will change the policy.
TAVA’s lawsuit, filed Thursday in the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit in Washington, D.C., asks it to compel the VA to respond to its 2016 petition within a reasonable time.
In an interview with NBC, TAVA President Rebekka Eshler said that transgender people suffer from “suicidal ideation” when they do not have access to sex reassignment surgery.
“Enough is enough,” she said. “How can I stand here and keep saying, ‘Just be patient,’ and not do anything when these veterans are reaching out because they’re at death’s door? They can’t handle it anymore. This is about building this trust back with the VA. They keep using us for political gain, but not keeping their word and keeping their promise.”
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In 2021, CNN reported that VA Secretary Denis McDonough was working to make irreversible gender surgery available to transgender veterans through their health plans.
“We are taking the first necessary steps to expand VA’s care to include gender confirmation surgery – thereby allowing transgender vets to go through the full gender confirmation process with VA at their side,” McDonough said at the time.
“Due in part to minority stress, LGBTQ+ veterans experience mental illness and suicidal thoughts at far higher rates than those outside their community, but they are significantly less likely to seek routine care, largely because they fear discrimination,” McDonough continued, adding that the VA is “determined to continue down that path. The path of progress.”
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