The Pentagon will resume gender transition care such as hormone therapy and surgery for transgender service members following a series of legal setbacks.
“Service members and all other covered beneficiaries 19 years of age or older may receive appropriate care for their diagnosis of [gender dysphoria], including mental health care and counseling and newly initiated or ongoing cross-sex hormone therapy,” Dr. Stephen Ferrara, the Pentagon’s acting assistant secretary of defense for health affairs, wrote in a memo dated Monday that was obtained by Politico.
Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth in February ordered all military branches to pause accepting recruits with histories of gender dysphoria and halt some gender-affirming health care for transgender service members. It was in line with a Jan. 27 executive order by President Donald Trump that banned transgender individuals from serving in the military.
But the Pentagon is returning to a Biden administration-era medical policy for transgender service members after a court order struck down Hegseth’s restrictions as unconstitutional, Politico reported. The administration is appealing, but a federal appeals court in California denied the Pentagon’s effort to halt the policy while its challenge is pending.
The administration is barred from removing transgender service members or restricting their medical care, even though the administration on Thursday reportedly asked the Supreme Court to uphold the ban on transgender service members while legal challenges proceed. The administration insists its restrictions are geared toward people experiencing medical challenges related to “gender dysphoria,” but two federal judges said in March that the policy was a thinly veiled ban on transgender individuals that violated the Constitution.
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