Transgender veterans sue to have gender-affirming surgery covered by Department of Veteran Affairs
ABC News
A group of transgender veterans filed a lawsuit Thursday seeking to force the Department of Veteran Affairs to pay for and provide them gender-affirming surgeries
A group of transgender veterans filed a lawsuit Thursday seeking to force the Department of Veteran Affairs to begin providing and paying for gender-affirming surgeries.
The lawsuit from the Transgender American Veterans Association seeks to compel the VA to codify in its regulations verbal assurances the department has made that it would begin providing those services, said Rebekka Eshler, the president of the association.
She said the surgeries are needed to reduce the risk of suicides, depression, and psychological distress for transgender people who live with gender dysphoria.
“It would also mean that those veterans do not have to seek this care through private doctors, which is often prohibitively expensive,” the transgender veterans association said in its lawsuit, which it said was filed in the United States Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit in Washington.
A spokesperson for the Department of Veterans Affairs said it does not comment on ongoing litigation. But he pointed to 2021 statements from Veteran Affairs Secretary Denis McDonough, who said the VA was beginning a years long rulemaking process that would result in providing gender-affirming surgeries. McDonough said the VA would use the time to “develop capacity to meet the surgical needs” of transgender veterans.
