Every once in awhile the Veteran's Administration gets its nose back into joint.
This is likely to explode some brain boxes on the right, but the Veterans Health Administration has decided that veterans are eligible for pre- and post-operative health care and mental health counseling related to gender confirmation surgery at any of its hospitals or clinics.
The VHA facilities will not be permitted to perform genital or breast surgeries on veterans in the process of changing genders.
But the agency confirmed that transgender patients are entitled to routine health care that takes their special needs into account and to transgender-specific treatments such as hormone therapy and "non-surgical, supportive care for complications of sex-reassignment surgery."
--Link
Furthermore, all medical personnel at the 950 health care centers were instructed to refer to transgender veterans in conversation and on medical records by the gendered pronouns the patient prefers, regardless of surgical status.
The directive applies the same standards to intersex patients.
It doesn't create anything new. It just says to treat these veterans like you treat all veterans, but for trans vets that's really huge.
--Mara Keisling,executive director, National Center for Transgender Equality
Personally I did not access my VA benefits in order to transition as I had other insurance. But I was told by someone who worked at the VA facility near Little Rock that at one time…in the way back…before this society became so blatantly ugly and mean towards transpeople, they actually performed sex-change surgeries at the old Central Arkansas VA Hospital. Alas, the surgeons who performed it were long retired.
At the time, I recall thinking that it made sense that the VA would have some people with the required knowledge. After all war injuries are not exclusive of genitalia.
While I personally only accessed one doctor with an office at the VA Hospital and that was for a post-operative procedure, I had friends who were habitually treated badly, including one pre-operative friend who was also dealing with Agent Orange issues.
It has been the case that the VA would prefer to believe that it could never have been the case that we served this country honorably. They have been joined in that belief by the American Legion and Veterans of Foreign Wars.