March 17, 2025 – As you may have seen, the Trump Administration announced today that it is phasing out the providing of gender-affirming care for veterans through the VA.
Human Rights Campaign President Kelley Robinson released the following statement:
“Transgender veterans share the same commitment and the same love of country as all other veterans. They made the same sacrifices and are owed the same respect and care after their service. Despite this, the VA has decided to turn its back on transgender veterans who committed their lives to serving in our armed forces—complying with an Administration hellbent on harming and scapegoating the transgender community. We must continue to stand up for our transgender servicemembers and veterans. We must push back against these attacks until our nation’s policies reflect the values of honor, respect and duty that our transgender veterans embody.”
This is just the latest action from the Trump Administrations that abandons our servicemembers and veterans simply because of their gender identity. Earlier this year, the president signed an executive order banning trans people from serving in the military, and last month, the Human Rights Campaign Foundation and Lambda Legal filed a federal lawsuit challenging the constitutionality of the Trump administration’s ban on military service by transgender people.
Toplines on Gender-Affirming Care:
- Gender dysphoria happens when one’s gender identity does not match their sex as assigned at birth. Gender-affirming care is the medically-accepted treatment for a diagnosis of gender dysphoria, which impacts many transgender and non-binary people.
- Gender-affirming care includes a range of services, including mental health care, medical care.
- Gender-affirming care for transgender people is best-practice, medically necessary health care. Research has consistently found that receipt of gender-affirming care can significantly improve the lives of people who receive it.
- Every major medical and mental health organization — including the American Medical Association, the American Academy of Pediatrics, and the American Psychological Association — recognizes that gender-affirming care is medically necessary to support people in affirming their gender identity.
- In two separate systematic reviews, one focused on 53 studies and the other d focused on 29 studies exploring mental health impact across multiple forms of gender-affirming care, authors found that quality of life and happiness increased among trans adults following receipt of gender-affirming care, and depression, anxiety, suicidality, and gender dysphoria were reduced.
- There is broad national support for protecting LGBTQ+ people from discrimination. Treating transgender veterans differently simply because of who they are is out of touch with the values of the American people.