U.S. President Donald Trump tweeted in July that he would ban
transgender people from the military, a move that would reverse
Democratic former President Barack Obama’s policy of accepting
them and halt years of efforts to eliminate barriers to military
service based on sexual orientation or gender identity.
Since then however, Trump's policy on transgender service
members has faced setbacks.
Last month, a federal judge in Washington blocked Trump from
banning transgender people from serving in the U.S. military,
handing a victory to transgender service members who accused the
president of violating their constitutional rights.
Trump signed a memo which called on Defense Secretary Jim Mattis
to submit a plan to the President by Feb. 21 on how to implement
the changes, and the Pentagon has created a panel of senior
officials for that purpose.
In the meantime, the current policy, including allowing
transgender people to serve remains in force.
"Because this service member had already begun a
sex-reassignment course of treatment, and the treating doctor
deemed this surgery medically necessary, a waiver was approved
by the director of the Defense Health Agency," Pentagon
spokeswoman Dana White said in a statement.
She added that the surgery was carried out in a private hospital
because military hospitals did not have the expertise.
The surgery was paid for by Department of Defense because it was
deemed necessary for the well being of the service member.
Such procedures are rare in the U.S. military.
Last year, then-Defense Secretary Ash Carter cited a study by
the RAND Corporation saying there were about 2,500 transgender
active-duty service members and 1,500 reserve transgender
service members.
Rand’s figures were within a range, which at the upper end
reached 7,000 active duty forces and 4,000 reserves.
The same study estimated that the cost of gender-transition in
the military would increase costs by between $2.4 million and
$8.4 million annually, a negligible amount.
(Reporting by Idrees Ali; Editing by Michael Perry)
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