Photos: (L) Alex Ketchum, an infantryman with 1st Cavalry Division at Fort Hood, Texas, officially changed her gender marker in April, following a year and a half of hormone therapy and less than a year after the Defense Department lifted its ban on service for transgender troops; (R) Transgender U.S. Army Capt. Jennifer Sims lifts her uniform during an interview with The Associated Press in Beratzhausen near Regensburg, Germany, AP Photo/Matthias Schrader
US President Joe Biden's new bill "Enabling All Qualified Americans to Serve Their Country in Uniform" has legally mandated that transgender people who serve in the military will be able to receive gender reassignment surgery free of charge.
Gender reassignment surgery can cost up to $200,000 when carried out by a private surgeon.
Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin said of the new bill:
"This revised policy will also ensure all medically-necessary transition related care authorized by law is available to all Service members."
At present, it is believed that 15,000 US military service personnel identify as transgender, while 134,000 veterans also identify as transgender.
The bill was opposed by many Republicans, including rep. Jim Banks, who said that while he supported transgender people serving in the military, he opposed the taxpayer footing the bill for the reassignment surgery. He stated:
"This is radical and new territory for a presidential administration to force taxpayers to fund sexual reassignment surgeries for those in the military. I'm compassionate toward those individuals who want to undergo an elective surgery of this nature, but taxpayers shouldn't be on the hook to pay for it. It's constitutionally dubious that Congress hasn't passed these measures, but the administration, in a radical way, is pushing through this agenda. I sit on the committee that should debate these issues."
Lt. Gen. Thomas Spoehr, who commanded US Army forces in Iraq, was even more critical of the bill, claiming that any soldier could simply leave the battleground for medical leave in order to get reassignment surgery. He said:
"I would like to think the Pentagon would come up with a procedure … It's completely irrational to change your gender right in front of a conflict. A lot of people [in the military] are outraged by this idea that you can just come in and get this [surgery] and be gone from your unit. Someone has to pick up the slack while you are gone."
Since 2011, openly gay people have been allowed to serve in the US military. Prior to this, homosexual people were allowed to serve as long as they did not disclose to anyone they were gay or involved themselves in homosexual relations within the military. Transgender people have been allowed to serve in the US military since 2016.
[h/t: Washington Examiner]
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