The Department of Veterans Affairs (VA) will no longer provide “medical or surgical therapy for gender dysphoria,” the department announced Monday.
“I mean no disrespect to anyone, but VA should not be focused on helping Veterans attempt to change their sex,” stated VA Secretary Doug Collins. “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.”
The VA’s announcement brings the department, which provides medical care to millions of U.S. military veterans, into compliance with President Trump’s executive order “Defending Women from Gender Ideology Extremism and Restoring Biological Truth to the Federal Government.” The VA explained it “is adjusting its policies to fully comply” with the order, which states that “It is the policy of the United States to recognize two sexes, male and female. These sexes are not changeable and are grounded in fundamental and incontrovertible reality.”
Since 1999, the code of federal regulations prohibits the VA from providing “gender alterations” (38 CFR 17.38(c)(4)).
However, the Biden administration interpreted this prohibition to apply only to gender transition surgeries. They provided cross-sex hormone therapy, voice training, and genital prosthetics. They would even take care of all procedures surrounding a gender transition surgery, referring to outside providers and providing extensive post-operative care, including follow-up surgeries.
According to internal documents obtained by The Daily Wire, the Biden administration created numerous resources and trainings to instruct VA employees on how to provide gender-affirming care. There was even a training to instruct “parking attendants or valets, maintenance staff, [and] housekeepers” how to ask for a veteran’s preferred name, gender, and pronouns.
Another Biden-era document directed VA staff to pay outside providers for laser hair removal from a trans-identifying person’s “face/neck, back, chest, abdomen, or genitalia” by using an “unlisted procedure code for skin, mucous membrane, and subcutaneous tissue,” to conceal the true nature of the transaction.
Collins announced that the VA will immediately cease providing hormones, training, prosthetics, and other services related to gender transitions. The only exception is for veterans who are currently taking cross-sex hormones, which require a weaning-off period.
The VA also announced “that all intimate spaces, such as bathrooms, locker rooms, and patient rooms, are designated by sex (male or female) or unisex for single-person spaces,” in accordance with President Trump’s executive order.
Over the past two years, American public opinion has turned dramatically against transgender ideology, according to recent polling. This trend coincides with mounting evidence of the harm caused by gender transition procedures, especially in minors, as well mounting protests of women forced to share locker rooms or sporting events with biological males.
Since 2021, more than half of U.S. state legislatures—27 to be exact—have enacted legislation protecting minors from gender transition procedures, based on the fact that minors are not mature enough to reasonably consent to life-altering, potentially harmful hormone treatments and surgeries.
Under the Trump administration, the VA is approaching the topic of gender transition procedures from another angle, which only a handful of states have addressed. Instead of examining the effects of gender transition procedures on minors, the VA has concluded that gender transition procedures are incompatible with the biological reality that every person belongs to one of two unchangeable sexes. And, on the basis of that determination, the VA has decided that American taxpayers should not be forced to pay for medical procedures based on a controversial ideology with which they disagree.
“If Veterans want to attempt to change their sex,” Collins concluded, “they can do so on their own dime.”
“This is a great decision by the VA,” FRC Senior Fellow Meg Kilgannon told TWS. “Gender affirmation is not optimal health care because sex change is simply not possible. This notion should not be endorsed or encouraged by our military or government.”
Originally published by The Washington Stand
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