On Thursday, a group of transgender veterans sued the Department of Veterans Affairs in an effort to compel it to start offering and funding gender-affirming therapies.
Rebekka Eshler, the leader of the Transgender American Veterans Association, stated that the lawsuit seeks to force the VA to formalize in its rules linguistic assurances the department has made that it would start providing those solutions.
She claimed that the procedures are necessary to lower trans people with gender dysphoria’s risk of suicide, depression, and emotional distress.
The trans veterans association argued in its petition, which it claimed was brought before the United States Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit in Washington, that doing so would also free those veterans from having to pay excessively expensive private medical treatment.
The Department of Veterans Affairs’s director stated that it makes no comments regarding ongoing legal disputes. However, he cited assertions made in 2021 by Veterans Affairs Secretary Denis McDonough, who claimed that the VA was starting a year-long rulemaking process that may lead to the provision of gender-affirming surgeries. According to McDonough, the VA will use the time to “develop capacity to meet the medical needs” of transgender veterans.
According to him, the choice will enable “transgender veterans to go through the entire gender confirmation process with VA by their side.”
In May 2016, the veterans submitted their initial petition calling for the rule change. The VA has since held hearings and developed a number of proposed rules for cost-benefit analysis, according to the organization. However, despite the VA’s current provision of hormone therapy and other services to trans veterans at some locations, the group claimed that it has not yet changed its rules or offered any coverage for the surgeries.
Eshler remarked, “I receive phone calls from veterans who are in such a crisis that they are calling us because they can’t take it any longer and they want to go kill themselves.”
Texas resident Natalie Kastner, a 39-year-old disabled veteran, claimed she visited the VA in 2022 to receive surgery. She claimed she tried self-castration with a blade after the local doctors denied her request. Doctors were able to save her life after she struck an artery and nearly passed away.
She remarked, “I didn’t enter that restroom intending to end my life.” “I entered that restroom in an effort to heal myself.” How many others have done the same but not had the good fortune to be listed as suicide? I can only imagine.
Eshler expressed her hope that the lawsuit does even harmonize the treatment provided to transgender veterans, who, according to her, can differ from state to state and even clinic to clinic.
In the lawsuit, the VA is required to respond within 30 days to the 2016 complaint.
