"Our nation owes our veterans the best possible care and we owe them a debt of gratitude for their service," Secretary Denis McDonough said at an event celebrating Pride Month in Orlando, Florida. "This time will allow VA to develop capacity to meet the surgical needs that transgender veterans have called for and deserved."
Secretary Denis McDonough announced last week new steps by President Obama's administration designed to provide all military personnel with better health coverage, specifically addressing long-ignored issues related to gender identity.
Since taking office in January, President Joe Biden has sought to differentiate himself from his predecessor, including with respect to the service of transgender military members. One of Biden's earliest acts in office was to reverse former President Donald Trump's ban on transgender troops serving in the military.
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"President Biden believes that gender identity should not be a bar to military service and that America's strength is found in its diversity. This question of how to enable all qualified Americans to serve in the military is easily answered by recognizing our core values," the White House said in a statement when Biden signed the executive order on Jan. 25.
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"America is stronger, at home and around the world, when it is inclusive," the statement read. "The military is no exception. Allowing all qualified Americans to serve their country in uniform is better for the military and better for the country because an inclusive force is a more effective force. Simply put, it's the right thing to do and is in our national interest.
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On Aug. 25, 2017, Trump signed the Presidential Memorandum on Military Service by Transgender Individuals, which "halt[ed] all use of [Department of Defense] or [Department of Homeland Security] resources to fund sex-reassignment surgical procedures for military personnel, except to the extent necessary to protect the health of an individual who has already begun a course of treatment to reassign his or her sex," among other provisions.
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The military has recently received charges of being "woke" from the Right, with Sen. Ted Cruz retweeting a post comparing recruitment ads for the Russian and U.S. militaries.
"Holy crap," he wrote last month. "Perhaps a woke, emasculated military is not the best idea."
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Under the Biden administration, the military has taken steps toward promoting diversity in its ranks, with the Navy creating a task force designed to "combat discrimination," which recommended sailors to take a pledge to "acknowledge all lived experiences and intersectional identities."
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Other federal agencies have made similar moves. The Central Intelligence Agency has released a series of ads highlighting that "inclusion is a core value here [at the CIA]."
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"I am intersectional, but my existence is not a box-checking exercise," a Latina agent says in one ad in the series, later adding that she "refuse[s] to internalize misguided, patriarchal ideas of what a woman can or should be."
Original Location: Department of Veterans Affairs to pay for surgeries of transgender veterans.
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