I almost forgot. First, sex reassignment surgery is very expensive.
Also, I failed to discuss the impact of transgendered individuals who do not go through with sex reassignment surgery.
In this case you have a female gendered individual with male genitalia. If treated as a legal female, this means during an observed urinalyses drug test (military standard for random drug tests), the biological male/female gendered individual must be observed by a female. Likewise, a biological female/male gendered individual must be observed by a male.
While the military has moved aggressively away from shared barracks and “gang latrines” with communal showers, they still exist on ships and in forward deployed areas. In these cases, the biological male/female gendered individual must be use female facilities, and the biological female/male gendered individual must use male facilities.
This is not a case of disappearing into a shower stall at a university or a gym. Expect no privacy at forward operating locations.
We have entered an era where most of the people who have voice their opinion have never dealt with this. They had their own room growing up. Even if they lived in a dorm in college, they did not have communal showers. They probably never even shared an apartment with a roommate as a 20-something. They never lived in austere environments. And they want to make policy based on their life experiences.
I read a ridiculous article by neocon Max Boot criticizing Trump’s decision, and claiming how little it costs the military to provide medical services to transgendered. The estimated cost was $8.4 million for 2,450 transgendered military members, or about $3,400 per transgender per year. I assume that is the cost of medical/psychological services and hormone therapy.
The bogus comparison was to compare the total cost of erectile dysfunction medication on military members, dependents, and retirees, using a value of $84 million for these expenses. But the same source for this information, which was from 2014, this was for 1.18 million prescriptions, or about $71 per individual per year. This is a low cost, and suggests many of these prescriptions are temporary, and not chronic.
The sexist attacks on males is a typical trope for secular progressives who want to make comparisons. We rarely hear how overall medical costs for men are less than women. We rarely hear of the costs associated with integrating women into ships and submarines, etc.
I found a link on the web about the costs of transition from male to female, and it said hormone therapy cost $1,500 per year—this is for life. The cost of male to female sex reassignment surgery, breast augmentation, and facial cosmetic surgery to soften and feminize masculine facial features combined to total $100,000.
Assuming $3,400 per year for mental health and hormones, and a conservative cost of $75,000 for sex reassignment surgery means over a 20-year career a transgendered military member will cost the taxpayer about $140,000. For 2,500 transgenders, that is $350 million dollars. And that is not even considering the cost of lost productivity, lost combat readiness, and lost deployability of these individuals.