A recently published study on trans military health contradicts the administration’s reasons for its ban on trans military members: namely, that trans military members are undeployable, impair unit cohesion, and incur unreasonably high healthcare costs. The study found that none of these claims is true.

Concurrently, the presidential administration recently asked for a federal court to dismiss a lawsuit by active duty transgender Air Force members suing to win back their revoked military retirement benefits, saying that the members must first leave the armed forces before they have a right to sue over revoked benefits.

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Both the study and the court case originated from the president’s January 2025 executive order seeking to force all trans military members out of the armed services. The order says that trans identity is a mental disorder that is selfish, dishonorable, deceitful, undisciplined, and unfit for military service.

A new paper recently published in the International Journal of Transgender Health analyzed 58 empirical studies on trans service in the U.S. military and found that the administration’s justifications for the ban were baseless.

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The study found that the U.S. military spends about $5 million annually on healthcare for trans military members, and only $1 million of that amount on gender-affirming care. The military spends much more on “obesity, musculoskeletal injuries, pregnancy and childbirth, vision problems, and the ordinary ailments of a large, young population,” the aforementioned publication noted.

While opponents of trans military involvement have claimed that constant surgery and recovery from gender-affirming care make trans military members perpetually undeployable, a few studies reviewed in the recently published paper showed that trans service members regularly schedule their medical procedures or treatment changes around deployment cycles.

Put another way, no evidence demonstrates that trans military members are less deployable than their peers who are recovering from other routine medical conditions, like injuries and postpartum care. The paper also found no evidence demonstrating that trans service members harm unit cohesion.

It’s true that trans military members experience higher rates of depression, anxiety, PTSD, and suicidality. However, the paper said those rates are more connected to discrimination, harassment, sexual violence, and stigma than to trans identity itself, The Advocate summarized. The paper also found that supportive leadership and affirming environments can create better outcomes for the mental health of trans and cisgender military members alike.

“I kept hearing these assertions from the government and then repeated by laypeople that trans folks were costing us too much, harming unit cohesion, not ready for deployment,” said assistant professor at the University of Nevada, Las Vegas, Kati McNamara, a lead author of the recently published paper. “So I was literally looking for that data. And I just could not find a single study that said that.”

It’s not the first time that the administration’s justifications for its ban have been successfully challenged. Last February, lesbian federal Judge Ana Reyes said that the administration’s assertion that trans pronoun use undermines troop effectiveness was “frankly ridiculous” and called it evidence of the president’s “unadulterated animus” against trans individuals.

Furthermore, a 2016 study by the RAND Corporation found that the cost of trans-related medical care is exceedingly small relative to the Department of Defense’s overall healthcare costs, that trans people do not harm military readiness, and that foreign militaries have successfully enlisted trans military service members without any issues with effectiveness, readiness, or unit cohesion.

DOJ tries to dismiss trans Air Force members’ lawsuit

After the president’s order banning trans military members, the U.S. Air Force offered to let its trans members apply for Temporary Early Retirement Authority (TERA), offering early retirement and associated lifetime benefits to trans service members who served between 15 and 18 years in the force. 

However, last August, the Air Force rescinded this offer and told all trans members that they must either accept a one-time lump-sum separation payment with no benefits or be involuntarily kicked out without any pay. The rescinded offer essentially stripped trans service members who had retirement dates of their prorated retirement benefits, including pensions, access to TRICARE health insurance coverage, access to military housing, and disability benefits.

In response, 17 trans Air Force members sued, saying the policy reversal destabilized their future plans based on their expected benefits. Trans service members and allies are calling the policy change an arbitrary, cruel, and dehumanizing betrayal of their service.

In its recent filing with the U.S. Court of Federal Claims, Department of Justice (DOJ) attorneys said that that 16 of the 17 plaintiffs in Logan Ireland et al. v. United States should have their claims dismissed because they’re on active duty – though they remain in a form of paid leave called “administrative absence” – while their formal separations from the military continue to proceed, The Advocate reported.

This status, the DOJ argues, means that the members haven’t suffered “presently due monetary damages,” and thus they are asking the court to rule on future retirement benefits, which falls outside the court’s jurisdiction, the filing states.

It’s unclear what the court will decide, but its decision could determine whether the Air Force acted illegally and whether the federal government can deny promised benefits that military members rightfully earned after years of active service.

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