No Trans In The Military Says Trump

[Brian37]

I wouldn't ever expect the military to cover surgeries like that, but why not things like therapy? The base I was on had a great system for all sorts of mental and physical therapy that was provided to the troops. It wouldn't be an extra burden at all. And as I noted before, hormone treatment is also very inexpensive. Nothing but surgery would be a game changer here.

I would.  Full VA coverage is full VA coverage.  Projections for the full range of trans procedures have already been run, the potential cost was found to be negligible.  That includes surgery, so why would it be a game changer?  The VA already offers elective surgeries and recreational prescriptions.  As a federal body, there is no legal or legitimate way for them to fail to provide services to rightful vets on the basis of animus or even the personal beliefs or opinions of any given provider.  Getting access to things you couldn't otherwise afford..be it food and shelter, an education, travel, or medical expenses...is the number one driving force behind recruitment.  

In any case, there's this wonderful thing in the service called a soldiers right to fail, lol.  It's unrecognized and unofficial, but impossible to prevent.  Here's to hoping that they mysteriously fail to root out all those icky trans, just like they used to with all the icky gays....at least until we find an adult to sit at the big desk again.

I was not brave enough to serve, in fact, I washed out of Air Force basic. The physical training actually was not the worst part. But why I failed takes a couple of sentences of my childhood to understand. I was a sensitive kid being raised by two authoritarian teachers, whom while having the best intent, tried to toughen me up because they were kids of the WW2 era where boys don't cry. It also did not help that I had nothing but male bullies on my street. So by the time I signed up, I had had a lifetime of low self esteem. So from the very first morning at 5am stepping off the bus on the base, being yelled at until 10:30 at night it was like living on my street. I had no concept of what they were really trying to do. I blamed myself for every little thing and felt even worse when I could not preform the way they wanted me to.

So I look at it this way with LGBT serving, they are doing what I cold not, and if you are willing to risk a bullet or bomb for me, I think you damned sure deserve to have that surgery. The military is not there to protect a political party or a religion, but to protect those who cannot protect themselves. Most civilians don't do that in any case. Serving takes calm focus to face that kind of stress, and some people are simply not cut out to handle that. But for the people that do, they deserve our support while in and when they come home.