American Medical Assoc.: No Valid Reason to Ban Transgender Troops

The American Medical Association says there's no valid medical reason to bar transgender people from serving in the military.

"We believe there is no medically valid reason -- including a diagnosis of gender dysphoria -- to exclude transgender individuals from military service," the AMA wrote to Defense Secretary James Mattis in a letter dated Tuesday and obtained by Politico.

Donald Trump recently reiterated his plan to ban military service by trans people, this time ostensibly based on a report from Mattis. The ban, reversing a policy put in place under President Barack Obama, is currently blocked by courts hearing lawsuits challenging it.

A White House memo released late last month said that based on Mattis's report, "transgender persons with a history or diagnosis of gender dysphoria -- individuals who the policies state may require substantial medical treatment, including medications and surgery -- are disqualified from military service except under certain limited circumstances." LGBT rights advocates characterized the policy as the same as the absolute ban Trump tweeted last July, just dressed up with justification from Mattis.

But that's not really any justification, according to the AMA. Mattis's report "mischaracterized and rejected the wide body of peer-reviewed research on the effectiveness of transgender medical care," says the letter, signed by AMA CEO James Madara. The cost of providing such care, as estimated by a RAND Corp. study, is "negligible," amounting to "a rounding error" in the multibillion-dollar Defense budget, Madara pointed out.

"Transgender individuals have served, and continue to serve, our country with honor, and we believe they should be allowed to continue doing so," Madara wrote. The RAND study, he added, "should not be used as a reason to deny patriotic Americans an opportunity to serve their country. We should be honoring their service."