The Pentagon has spent more than $26 million treating transgender troops since 2020, official records show.
The number of US military personnel with gender dysphoria has doubled in that time: from around 1,800 to 3,700, according to Department of Defense data seen by DailyMail.com.
In the last three years, $17.5 million of taxpayer money was spent on psychotherapy for people in trans services and $1.5 million was spent on hormonal medications.
Another $7.6 million financed gender affirmation surgeriesincluding facial adjustments to make a recruit more masculine or feminine, and the removal or creation of breasts and genitals.
The number of military personnel diagnosed with gender dysphoria has increased from 1,892 in 2020 to 3,700 in 2024
Since 2020, $17.5 million has been spent on psychotherapy, $1.5 million on hormone therapy and $7.6 million on gender-affirming surgeries, according to Department of Defense data provided to DailyMail.com.
The U.S. Military Health System spends about $50 billion annually to provide care to 9.6 million active duty members, retirees and their families through its TRICARE health plans.
According to its website, TRICARE generally does not cover surgery for the treatment of gender dysphoria, but active duty service members “may request a waiver for medically necessary gender affirmation surgery.”
The total number of transgender people in the military is unknown, because it is likely that not all have sought treatment.
But as of last month, 3,700 active military personnel were diagnosed and treated for gender dysphoria, according to DHA spokesman Peter Graves.
This includes 1,240 Army soldiers, 1,046 Navy soldiers, 1,024 Air Force airmen and 278 Marine Corps airmen.
They represent 0.3 percent of military personnel, a figure lower than the 0.6 percent of trans people in the country. American population in general.
In 2020, 1,892 military members had been diagnosed and treated for gender dysphoria, including 726 Army soldiers, 576 Navy sailors, 449 Air Force airmen and 141 Marines.
This represented 0.1 percent of the 1,333,822 military personnel on active duty at the time.
The rise in gender dysphoria diagnoses is not out of balance with the increase in transgender people seen in the general population, which has been attributed to growing acceptance in society.
Former House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif., left) presents challenge coins to U.S. Army Maj. Ian Brown, right, and other military service members in 2019 to thank them for their service. Brown, 38, is a two-time Bronze Star recipient and transitioned from woman to man while advising the Army deputy chief of staff on operations and planning.
According to the Defense Health Agency, the surgeries were performed at military health facilities and included removal of breasts or testicles, hysterectomies and labiaplasty (creation or reshaping of flesh around the vagina).
Since 2020, various gender-affirming procedures have been performed on members of the military, but the most popular was facial reconstruction surgery.
These are designed to make people look more feminine or masculine and include reshaping the forehead and eyebrows, contouring the jaw and chin, and removing or creating the Adam’s apple.
The next most popular surgery was the mastectomy, or removal of the breasts, and 192 of them have been performed since 2021.
Rarer surgeries include a vaginectomy, which is an operation to remove all or part of the vagina, a clitoroplasty, a procedure to create a clitoris, and a scrotoplasty, the rearrangement of the labia to create a scrotum.
Three people also underwent gender-affirming voice training in 2022, which involves helping transgender people adjust their voices to communication patterns that fit their gender identity, according to the Mayo Clinic.
Two unclassified surgeries were also performed between 2022 and 2023.
Individuals must be at least 17 years old to join the US military.
In 2017, then-President Donald Trump announced through a series of tweets that he would ban transgender people from serving in the military.
Biden reversed the policy on his fifth day in office in January 2021.
