Veterans Affairs phases out all gender-affirming care for transgender veterans

Driving the news: The VA will not offer gender-affirming care to veterans not already receiving such care.

• The department never offered gender-affirming surgeries, but it covered services like hormone therapy, voice training and prosthetics.
• The VA also provided letters of support for gender-affirming surgery done by non-VA medical providers. It will end that service.
• According to the release, any savings from ending this type of care will go to supporting paralyzed veterans and amputees.

By the numbers: Less than one-tenth of one percent of the 9.1 million veterans in VA care are transgender, according to an estimate by the Veterans Health Administration.

What they're saying: "All eligible Veterans – including trans-identified Veterans – will always be welcome at VA and will always receive the benefits and services they've earned under the law," VA Secretary Doug Collins said. "But if Veterans want to attempt to change their sex, they can do so on their own dime."

• Lindsay Church, executive director of Minority Veterans of America, said in a release that the decision is "a direct attack on the dignity and well-being of transgender, nonbinary, and intersex veterans — one that will have deadly outcomes."

• "Transgender individuals serve at a higher rate than the general public; this decision will force our community to defer or delay care and opt out of VA services altogether. This decision will exacerbate our already devastatingly high suicide rates and push more veterans into crisis for no reason other than hate."