--- title: Here's What Transgender Service Members Actually Cost the Military description: President Trump announced that transgender people will no longer be allowed to serve in the military due to costs. authors: - name: Elizabeth O'Brien role: Deputy Editor url: https://money.com/author/elizabeth-obrien/ bio: Elizabeth O’Brien is Money's deputy editor. She has covered personal finance for more than 10 years, with a focus on retirement planning and health care. Subscribe to her weekly newsletter, Retire with Money. at_money_since: 2016 articles: 194 covers: - Economy and Politics - Business - Career Advice - Credit - Education - Health and Wellness - Housing - Identity Theft - Insurance - Investing - Lifestyle - Loans - Personal Finance - Pets - Retirement - Shopping - Taxes - Technology social: - https://twitter.com/elizobrien former_staff: true published: '2017-07-26T17:19:56.000Z' modified: '2024-04-17T06:22:38.000Z' section: Economy and Politics tags: - Donald Trump - Military - Transgender word_count: 208 canonical: https://money.com/heres-what-transgender-service-members-actually-cost-the-military/ type: Article source: structured-blocks --- > **Disclosure:** We research all brands listed and may earn a fee from our partners. Research and financial considerations may influence how brands are displayed. Not all brands are included. [Learn more](https://money.com/page/disclaimer/). ![President Trump Delivers Statement On Healthcare At The White House](https://img.money.com/2017/07/170726-trump-transgender-healthcare-lgbt.jpg?crop=0px%2C133px%2C4000px%2C2250px&quality=85) *U.S. President Donald Trump speaks during a press conference on healthcare in the Blue Room of the White House in Washington, D.C., U.S., on Monday, July 24, 2017.* In a string of Tweets Wednesday morning, President Donald Trump [announced a ban on transgender](https://time.com/4874394/trump-transgender-military-ban-what-to-know/) people serving in the military due to their “tremendous medical costs” -- costs that experts have estimated are less than the price of a pack of gum per service member per month. Last year, the U.S. military allowed openly transgender people to serve for the first time. Aaron Belkin, a professor at San Francisco State University, [estimated in a Reuters story at the time](http://www.reuters.com/article/us-gay-rights-usa-military-idUSKCN0QI1HA20150813?feedType=RSS&feedName=domesticNews) that providing transition care to service members –- including both gender reassignment surgeries and hormones -- would cost just 22 cents per service member per month when spread out among the entire military force. He estimated that transition care would total around $5.6 million a year, a small fraction of the military’s $47.8 billion annual health care budget. [Estimates by the Rand Corporation](http://www.rand.org/pubs/research_reports/RR1530.html) last year fell into a similar range. “President Trump this morning simply lied about the data,” Belkin says. Critics were quick to point out the relative cost of transgender military care. There were an estimated 8,800 actively serving transgender members of the U.S. military in 2014, according to [the Williams Institute](https://williamsinstitute.law.ucla.edu/research/military-related/us-transgender-military-service/), roughly 0.6% of the total number of active duty personnel that year. ```json { "@context": "https://schema.org", "@graph": [ { "@type": "BreadcrumbList", "@id": "https://money.com/heres-what-transgender-service-members-actually-cost-the-military/#breadcrumb", "itemListElement": [ { "@type": "ListItem", "position": 1, "name": "Home", "item": "https://money.com" }, { "@type": "ListItem", "position": 2, "name": "Economy and Politics", "item": "https://money.com/economy-and-politics/" }, { "@type": "ListItem", "position": 3, "name": "LGBTQIA", "item": "https://money.com/lgbtqia/" }, { "@type": "ListItem", "position": 4, "name": "Here's What Transgender Service Members Actually Cost the Military" } ] }, { "@type": "WebSite", "@id": "https://money.com/#website", "url": "https://money.com", "name": "Money", "publisher": { "@id": "https://money.com/#organization" } }, { "@type": "WebPage", "@id": "https://money.com/heres-what-transgender-service-members-actually-cost-the-military/#webpage", "url": "https://money.com/heres-what-transgender-service-members-actually-cost-the-military/", "name": "Here's What Transgender Service Members Actually Cost the Military", "isPartOf": { "@id": "https://money.com/#website" }, "datePublished": "2017-07-26T17:19:56.000Z", "mainEntity": { "@id": "https://money.com/heres-what-transgender-service-members-actually-cost-the-military/" }, "inLanguage": "en-US", "breadcrumb": { "@id": "https://money.com/heres-what-transgender-service-members-actually-cost-the-military/#breadcrumb" }, "dateModified": "2024-04-17T06:22:38.000Z" }, { "@type": "Article", "headline": "Here's What Transgender Service Members Actually Cost the Military", "articleSection": "Economy and Politics", "image": [ { "@type": "ImageObject", "url": "https://img.money.com/2017/07/170726-trump-transgender-healthcare-lgbt.jpg?crop=0px%2C133px%2C4000px%2C2250px&quality=85", "width": 1012, "height": 569, "caption": "170726-trump-transgender-healthcare-lgbt" } ], "author": [ { "@type": "Person", "name": "Elizabeth O'Brien", "url": "https://money.com/author/elizabeth-obrien/", "@id": "https://money.com/author/elizabeth-obrien/#author", "description": "Elizabeth O’Brien is Money's deputy editor. 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