“...could be a powerful recruitment and retention tool.”
Are they actively recruiting for mental disorders? (Why am I surprised? I should know better.. ehm worse... whatever)
MooseBurger, maybe they consider the five-fold increase in suicides AFTER sex reassignment surgery to be a plus?
"A 2010 survey from the National Center for Transgender Equality and the National Gay and Lesbian Task Force found that 41% of transgender people attempted suicide at one time". http://www.advocate.com/News/Daily_News/2012/02/21/Survey_41_of_Transgender_People_Attempted_Suicide/
Karolinska Institutet, Stockholm, Sweden, says,
"Persons with transsexualism, after sex reassignment, have considerably higher risks for mortality, suicidal behavior, and psychiatric morbidity than the general population. Our findings suggest that sex reassignment, although alleviating gender dysphoria, may not suffice as treatment for transsexualism, and should inspire improved psychiatric and somatic care after sex reassignment for this patient group." http://www.plosone.org/article/info%3Adoi%2F10.1371%2Fjournal.pone.0016885
"There is no conclusive evidence that sex change operations improve the lives of transsexuals, with many people remaining severely distressed and even suicidal after the operation, according to a medical review conducted exclusively for Guardian Weekend.
The review of more than 100 international medical studies of post-operative transsexuals by the University of Birmingham's aggressive research intelligence facility (Arif) found
no robust scientific evidence that gender reassignment surgery is clinically effective.http://www.guardian.co.uk/society/2004/jul/30/health.mentalhealth
Suicide studies show that 90% of attempts are the result of undiagnosed and/or untreated psychiatric and psychological disorders as the real cause of suicide and attempted suicide. (I.e. they didn't do careful diagnoses of underlying psychiatric problems because they assumed gender reassignment would "fix it all".)
"Sex change" (actually sex-maiming) surgery is massively cruel to these confused and suffering patients.