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Exclusion of Medically Necessary Gender-Affirming Surgery for America’s Armed Services Veterans

Overview of attention for article published in The AMA Journal of Ethic, April 2018
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Title
Exclusion of Medically Necessary Gender-Affirming Surgery for America’s Armed Services Veterans
Published in
The AMA Journal of Ethic, April 2018
DOI 10.1001/journalofethics.2018.20.4.sect1-1804
Pubmed ID
Authors

William M Kuzon, Emily Sluiter, Katherine M Gast

Abstract

Gender dysphoria, the term used in the fifth edition of the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders(DSM) to describe distress at the incongruence between one's gender and anatomy, affects approximately 0.6 percent of the population. It is estimated that there are 134,000 Armed Forces veterans in the United States with gender dysphoria. Although gender-affirming surgery is widely accepted as a medically necessary intervention for appropriately selected patients with gender dysphoria, the Veterans Health Administration (VHA) Health Benefits package and VHA Directive 2013-033 specifically prohibit gender-affirming surgery within Veterans Affairs (VA) facilities or using VA funding. This policy, which has been legally challenged after being reaffirmed in January 2017, denies medically necessary care to veterans, causing harm to individual patients and reinforcing discrimination and prejudicial treatment of a minority population. We argue that the policy is indefensible as it violates the basic ethical principles of beneficence, nonmaleficence, and justice.

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Mendeley readers

The data shown below were compiled from readership statistics for 54 Mendeley readers of this research output. Click here to see the associated Mendeley record.

Geographical breakdown

Country Count As %
Unknown 54 100%

Demographic breakdown

Readers by professional status Count As %
Student > Doctoral Student 5 9%
Researcher 4 7%
Student > Master 3 6%
Student > Bachelor 3 6%
Student > Ph. D. Student 2 4%
Other 7 13%
Unknown 30 56%
Readers by discipline Count As %
Medicine and Dentistry 10 19%
Psychology 5 9%
Nursing and Health Professions 4 7%
Social Sciences 2 4%
Biochemistry, Genetics and Molecular Biology 1 2%
Other 0 0%
Unknown 32 59%