Republicans slam Biden for using taxpayer money to offer gender transition surgery for veterans

REPUBLICANS have slammed President Joe Biden for using taxpayer money to offer transgender veterans gender confirmation surgery.

Members of the GOP denounced The Department of Veterans Affairs' move after an announcement was made on Saturday.

Speaking at a Pride Month event in Orlando over the weekend, Secretary Denis McDonough said: "We’re making these changes not only because they are the right thing to do, but because they can save lives."

He noted that his decision stems from the "recommendation of our clinicians, so this is a health care decision that has very real physical health care impacts as well as significant mental health impacts."

According to McDonough, the change — which will likely undergo a yearslong federal rulemaking process — was helpful in overcoming a "dark history" of discrimination against LGBTQ service members, the Associated Press reported.

McDonough, the Biden administration's secretary of veterans affairs, explained the new move is just the first step in expanding VA health benefits to cover the gender confirmation surgery.

Time is needed to "develop the capacity to meet the surgical needs" of transgender veterans and allow for vets to have the VA "by their side" during the full gender confirmation process, McDonough said.

Despite the motion to help veterans, not everyone is in agreement with the Biden administration's move.

"President Biden and Secretary McDonough should be less focused on winning the culture wars and more focused on helping the veterans who are suffering from the actual wars," Rep Mike Bost, a member of the House Veterans’ Affairs Committee, told Fox News. 

"Congress has been waiting for months for them to come to the table and help us deliver care and benefits to toxic-exposed veterans who are sick and dying. We have gotten no response. Yet, somehow they found time to decide that taxpayers should pay for gender transition surgeries at VA medical facilities."

Additionally, Montana GOP Rep Matt Rosendale doesn't agree taxpayer dollars should be used for surgery costs.

In a statement to Fox News, Rosedale denounced the push for taxpayer-funded gender confirmation surgeries as "an absolute disgrace."

"This is yet another radical policy proposal by an administration with no concern for the reality of its harmful effects on those suffering from mental illness who have sacrificed for our country," Rosedale added.

There are approximately more than 134,000 transgender veterans and over 15,000 transgender individuals serving in the military today, according to the National Center for Transgender Equality.

Back in January, Biden reversed Donald Trump's 2017 ban on transgender people enrolling in the military.

The president signed an executive order allowing transgender people to serve as it's "the right thing to do" and is in the "national interest."

Trump announced the ban in July 2017, reversing a landmark decision by Barack Obama, which allowed transgender people to serve openly and receive help with sex change ops. 

Under Trump's policy, transgender military personnel were allowed to keep serving, but new recruits were kept out.

 

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