The judge overseeing the case against the Defense Department’s firing of transgender service members revealed that the military spends 8 times more on erectile dysfunction medication than on gender affirming care.
While discussing military spending with the Defense Department (DoD) attorney for the ongoing Talbott v Trump case, Judge Ana Reyes said the DoD spends approximately $5.2 million annually on medical care for service members with gender dysphoria.
Comparatively, the DoD spends $42 million a year on medication for service members with erectile dysfunction.
The US District Judge asked: “It’s not even a rounding error, right?”
If that were the case, then bottom-surgery wouldn’t be gender affirming care either.
Or maybe I’m just misunderstanding the entire concept. To date, I’ve never seen a single concrete statement on the topic that doesn’t upset someone (discounting bloody right-wingers for whom the entire concept is upsetting, bless their hearts) because it somehow invalidates someone else.
However, we seem to be in agreement that these people are raging assholes, and that’s the important takeaway.
Hmm. That’s a good point! It’s pretty difficult to argue “functioning male genitals” =/= “gender-affirming care” in that scenario. Thanks for checking me on that, I’ll edit my comment.
Always important to remember the real problem! We should never let “perfect” be the enemy of “good” when it comes to social progress, and comments like mine may be an example of
unnecessarilyincorrectly pushing toward “perfect”We must all be allies in defense of human rights.
I love seeing comments like yours where people change some of their thinking as a result of online discussion.
I was starting to feel like no one listens to understand and only listen to respond, and comments like this help lift me out of that perspective.