Breitbart Confuses Hospital Memo for Policy
A supposed “confidential Biden DoD memo” circulating on fringe conservative sites seems to be anything but.
by Alyssa Steinsiek
Last week a former Breitbart staffer’s Substack, The Dossier, rushed to publish an article about a “confidential Biden DoD memo” regarding healthcare policies for transgender servicemembers, forgetting in their haste to fact check any aspect of the ten-page document or its 24 pages of appendices. The story has been reprinted by Breitbart and a version has also appeared in elsewhere on the right fringe.
Let’s start at the top: This isn’t a Department of Defense memo.
screenshot from pdf posted by the Dossier
That’s a pretty big oversight. I can see how you might be confused, given the DoD stamp in the top left-hand corner, but it states immediately and clearly that what we’re actually looking at is an internal memorandum for the Defense Health Agency (DHA) at Womack Army Medical Center (WAMC). To boot, it isn’t even confidential. It has no security classification whatsoever.
The header also lists WAMC as residing at Fort Bragg, North Carolina, even though the Pentagon paid six million dollars to rename the base “Fort Liberty” in October of 2022.
What I’m saying is, the DHA needs to stop deadnaming Fort Liberty.
Speaking of the DHA… who are they? If the memo isn’t from the DoD, who is it from?
The DHA was established in 2018 to assume control of more than 400 medical facilities operated by the DoD so that they could ensure unified standards of care. They deliver TRICARE benefits, which means the healthcare of active duty servicemembers is their purview, which means they need to talk internally about medical transition for transgender servicemembers.
And to be very clear, this memo was not about the army at large or the United States military as a whole.
screenshot from pdf posted by the Dossier
This was most likely a draft document put together for civilian and military medical personnel working at WAMC, in preparation for an upcoming policy document regarding transgender servicemembers’ healthcare. We’ll talk about that new document in a little bit. For now, I want to break down The Dossier’s description of the specifics of WAMC’s transgender healthcare plans, which have been repeated by the other “reporters” who have picked this up.
screenshot from the Dossier
The article’s author, Jordan Schatchel—formerly a staff writer for Breitbart, who reprinted the piece—provides a handy list of services that might be rendered to transgender servicemembers. Schatchel describes these services, which are simply appropriate and standard healthcare for transgender people, as “enormous perks.”
He’s also mostly wrong about what services WAMC actually provides.
They do provide voice therapy and cross-sex hormones. They do not perform laser hair removal, as it is listed as “cosmetic,” except when performed as a requirement for sexual reassignment surgery, which Schatchel lovingly misconstrues as “genital mutilation surgery.” Since WAMC does not offer SRS services, laser hair sessions at that medical center can’t be covered by TRICARE. They do not offer voice feminization surgery. They do offer top surgery for trans men and breast implants for trans women, as well as facial feminization surgery and body countouring, such as liposuction and arm lifts.
It’s important to note that most of these surgeries are equally available to cisgender servicemembers, as is hormone replacement therapy. The document further explains that the military won’t pay for any of these surgeries until at least twelve months after a formal gender dysphoria diagnosis.
The list continues!
screenshot from the Dossier
These are, once again, not backed up by the document itself.
The Exception to Policy (ETP) waiver for grooming and uniform standards, as exemplified by an application form included in the memo, are specifically in regards to presenting your preferred name on your uniform and adhering to the dress standards of the gender you are transitioning into.
There is no mention of an ETP waiver for physical fitness standards in the memo, so who knows where Schatchel is getting that from. If anything, like with the ETP waiver for grooming and uniform standards, an ETP for physical fitness standards would just shift your expectations to that of the gender you are transitioning into.
As for the T3 status issued upon starting cross-sex hormones—meaning that the soldier in question is non-deployable for a period of up to 12 months—it’s not uncommon to receive non-deployable status for issues surrounding mental health, like a diagnosis of gender dysphoria might include. It may also be that a medical professional simply needs to see how their patient’s body responds to the changes of a second puberty. Regardless, I wouldn’t be surprised if the T3 status typically resolves earlier than the full twelve months, given that a transgender servicemember’s doctor can declare their transition “complete” at their discretion, per DoD Instruction 1300.28.
Hey, let’s talk about that!
Last Friday I cited 1300.28 in an article about a cis nasty girl who is apparently scared of the trans girls in basic. The instructions were issued by the DoD following President Biden’s reversal of Donald Trump’s ban of transgender servicemembers, and provided clear and concise—for DoD documents, anyway—information about how transgender servicemembers and their healthcare would be properly integrated into the armed forces.
1300.28 predates this unearthed local memorandum, but we’re in luck! Those instructions were updated in May, per Defense Health Agency-Procedural Instruction 6025.21, which expands upon many of the strategies and policies outlined in prior documentation. It is, in fact, very similar to the Fort Liberty DHS memo, except that it goes into considerably more detail about healthcare coverage and procedures for transgender servicemembers. If you, like Jordan, are worried about policy, you might want to inform yourself using the most up to date and comprehensive information.
As many conservative writers are wont to do, Schatchel ends his article by blaming the need for healthcare and integration for transgender servicemembers for the current low turnout for military enlistment in the United States.
But it isn’t transed genders or wokeness reducing enlistment rates; it’s the simple truth that military service has waned in cultural relevance, and this generation of Americans simply don’t want to risk dying for no good reason.
