In a hearing over the Defense Department's removal of transgender service members, a judge uncovered that the military spends $42 million a year on Viagra.

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?”

  • @Initiateofthevoid@lemmy.dbzer0.comEnglish
    13•5 hours ago

    If that were the case, then bottom-surgery wouldn’t be gender affirming care either.

    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.

    However, we seem to be in agreement that these people are raging assholes, and that’s the important takeaway.

    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 unnecessarily & incorrectly pushing toward “perfect”

    We must all be allies in defense of human rights.

    • @TwistyLex@discuss.tchncs.de
      2•7 hours ago

      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.