A Veterans Affairs plan announced this summer to begin offering sex-change operations for transgender veterans will be shelved because of budgetary constraints.
The Executive Office of the President had announced on its website in June that veterans should be eligible for sex-reassignment surgeries, but the policy change, which had been mulled by officials since 2014, was essentially voided Monday until “appropriated funding is available.”
“Increased understanding of both gender dysphoria and surgical techniques in this area has improved significantly and is now widely accepted as medically necessary treatment,” the statement said, Military Times reported. “VA has been and will continue to explore a regulatory change that would allow VA to perform gender alteration surgery.”
American Military Partner Association, a LGBT advocacy group, expressed disappointment in the decision.
“All of our nation’s veterans, regardless of their gender identity, deserve access to the medical care they earned serving our nation,” Ashley Broadway-Mack, the group’s president, said in a statement. “This is a deeply disappointing setback in making sure an often medically necessary procedure for transgender veterans is part of that care.”
The Obama administration’s previous statements on gender dysphoria asserted that emerging technology should serve as a bureaucrat game-changer for the VA.
SEE ALSO: VA seeks rule change to allow sex-reassignment surgeries for transgender veterans
“In light of these medical advances and recent research, VA would revise its regulation to remove the prohibition on medical services that are considered gender alterations,” the Executive Office of the President’s website said in June. “In this way, medical decisions would be made on a case-by-case basis about what procedures are medically necessary to treat gender dysphoria.”
• Douglas Ernst can be reached at dernst@washingtontimes.com.
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