Study: Transgender vets face discrimination

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Study: Transgender vets face discrimination
By Rick Maze - Staff writer
Posted : Monday Aug 25, 2008 22:07:47 EDT

A new study by a California research center finds that transgender veterans — people who changed their sex after getting out of the military — believe they are facing discrimination and disrespect at Department of Veterans Affairs medical facilities.

Transgender people also complained they had a difficult time while in the military, with repeated inquiries about their sexual orientation. Such questions were more likely to be faced by men planning to become women than for women planning to become men, according to the study by the Palm Center at the University of California, Santa Barbara.

The survey is based on interviews with 660 people identifying themselves as transgender veterans who were asked about their military and nonmilitary experiences, including 18 who said they began their gender transition while still in uniform.

Navy veteran Monica Helms, president of the Transgender American Veterans Association, said most of those who began a gender change while in the military were near the end of their service obligations and worked in isolated assignments so they did not call attention to themselves.

Only about 30 percent of those surveyed used VA hospitals, most of them men who became women, were 46 or older and had annual incomes of $30,000 or less.


Rest of article at: http://www.armytimes.com/news/2008/08/military_transgender_veterans_082508w/%2e