Exclusive: Transgender Veterans Petition the V.A. to Lift Blanket Ban on SurgeryKaty Steinmetz May 10, 2016
http://time.com/4324586/transgender-veterans-affairs-surgery-petition/In the petition, the legal team essentially makes four arguments. The first is that the V.A. already provides transition-related healthcare for transgender people, such as hormone replacement therapy and mental health services, so the ban is "arbitrary," says Lambda Legal's Dru Levasseur. (The V.A. issued a directive in 2011 indicating that staff must provide such care "without discrimination.") The second is that the V.A. covers the same procedures that transgender people are seeking, such as mastectomies, for non-transgender and intersex veterans. The third, says Levasseur, is "the V.A. created this exclusion without examining any relevant data," ignoring the "medical consensus" on the topic.
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