Over the weekend, the V.A. secretary announced that American taxpayers will have to pay for the slice-and-dice surgery that passes for "gender confirmation" for so-called transgender people.  While I would willingly support psychotherapy for those poor people who reject their own bodies and hormone treatments to align their brains with their biological bodies, to have to pay to have healthy bodies mutilated is outrageous.  Meanwhile, there are over 40,000 homeless vets in America who don't seem to interest the Biden administration.

First, the facts about the V.A.'s plans; then more facts and my comments:

VA Secretary Denis McDonough announced Saturday that the department has taken the first step, in what is expected to be a years-long process, toward providing gender transition surgeries covered by the veteran healthcare network.

"We're making these changes not only because they are the right thing to do, but because they can save lives," McDonough announced during a Pride event in Orlando. 

[snip]

The National Center for Transgender Equality estimates there are more than 134,000 transgender veterans in America today, along with another 15,000 transgender individuals serving in the ranks.

Though McDonough said changing the VA's health regulations will "take time," roughly 4,000 veterans nationwide are estimated to be interested in the gender transitioning procedure, reported the Military Times.

Let's be clear about what this means.  If you're thinking it simply means slicing off a woman's breasts or a man's penis and testicles, which is bad enough, think again.  In order for Bruce Jenner to look like the rather hag-ridden, big-boned alter ego he calls Caitlyn, he underwent multiple surgeries:

In order to achieve her [sic] feminine [sic] features during her second transition, the athlete and author underwent facial-feminisation surgery. The surgery can involve procedures such as hairline correction, forehead contouring, and jaw and chin contouring.

That procedure alone took ten hours.  Bruce also had breast implants, a nose job, a tracheal shave, and beard removal — and that was all before getting his penis and testicles cut off.  Presumably, he also had a fake cavity inserted in his body to mimic a vagina.  The fallout from this last surgery is frightful.  As one deeply unhappy man admits, "Until the day I die, my body will regard the vagina as a wound; as a result, it will require regular, painful attention to maintain."

The surgeries, the lifelong maintenance, and the hormones are all expensive — and you'll be on the hook for at least 4,000 of them.  Assuming that each vet costs $100,000, that's $400,000,000.  Sure, $4 million is a drop in the bucket of the vast federal budget, but you get enough drops, and you've got a swimming pool filled with taxpayers paying for all sorts of things they shouldn't have to fund.

Meanwhile, there are at least 40,000 veterans who are homeless on any given night.  Until every one of them has a permanent home (or the necessary mental health care to be able even to live in a home) it's obscene to pay money for "gender confirming surgery."

Some might wonder why it's obscene.  Those with gender dysphoria are obviously unhappy, and we do consider depression a mental illness — so why shouldn't we give them plastic surgery to cheer them up?  Well, first of all, it doesn't cheer them up.  Even after the surgery, so-called transgender people continue to have horrific suicide rates.

More fundamentally, this entire approach to so-called transgenderism is nonsensical.  Just as we don't staple the stomachs of people with anorexia because doing so is unethical and insane, we shouldn't cut into people's healthy bodies.  Doing so renders them permanently infertile and opens them up to a lifetime of costly and painful health issues.

The unhappiness so-called transgender people experience has nothing to do with their bodies and everything to do with their minds.  Many have suffered sexual or other traumas that have led them to try to disassociate themselves from their bodies.  After surgery, they discover that they're still in the same body.

Moreover, giving people hormones for the sex that is the opposite of their biological sex also sets them up for a lifetime of problems.  In addition to infertility, both sexes are more likely to have cancer and heart disease.

In a sane world, we would give these tortured souls therapy and, as I keep saying, hormones that align with their biological sex.  (This would also address those cases in which the problem is not one of mental health but really does involve a misalignment between a person's sex hormones and his sex.)  In an insane world, we have an entire industry dedicated to mutilating and poisoning healthy bodies — and now, thanks to the Biden administration, taxpayers will be on the hook for at least some of these cruel travesties.

[CORRECTION: An earlier version of this post said surgeries could potentially cost taxpayers $4 million. The correct amount is $400,000,000.]

Image: Transgender soldier in the U.S. military.  YouTube screen grab.

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