Liberal Forum

Doctor Will Provide Free Surgeries For Trans Military Personnel

Christine McGinn, herself transgender, won’t let her patients go without care.

A former Navy surgeon said that because of President Donald Trump’s announcement of a ban on transgender people serving in the armed services, she will wave the cost of gender confirmation surgery for some military personnel.

Dr. Christine McGinn, who is also transgender and was once nominated for the Navy’s flight surgeon of the year award, told CNN’s Michael Smerconish on Saturday that if the military won’t pay for its trans service members’ gender confirmation surgeries, any patients she already has scheduled for those operations will receive them for free.

“If the commander-in-chief won’t take care of our veterans, our veterans will.

I will do surgery for free on the number of people that I have already lined up for surgery,” she said.

She added that she’s “more than happy” to do so.
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Trump claimed in his announcement that transgender service members “burdened” the military with “tremendous medical costs and disruption.”

But as McGinn and many others have noted, the cost of caring for those personnel is a drop in the bucket of the military’s massive budget.