The Pentagon has spent more than $26 million on treating transgender troops since 2020, official data shows.
The number of U.S. military personnel with gender dysphoria has doubled in that time — from about 1,800 to 3,700, according to DoD data from DailyMail.com.
In the past three years, $17.5 million in taxpayer money was spent on psychotherapy for transgender people and $1.5 million on hormone medications.
Another $7.6 million funded gender confirmation surgeriesincluding facial modifications to make a recruit more masculine or feminine, and the removal or creation of breasts and genitals.
The number of soldiers diagnosed with gender dysphoria has increased from 1,892 in 2020 to 3,700 in 2024
According to Defense Department data provided to DailyMail.com, $17.5 million has been spent on psychotherapy, $1.5 million on hormone therapy and $7.6 million on gender-affirming surgeries since 2020.
The U.S. military health care system spends approximately $50 billion annually to provide care to 9.6 million active-duty military personnel, retirees and their families through its TRICARE health plans.
According to the website, TRICARE generally does not cover surgeries to treat gender dysphoria, but active duty members “may apply for a waiver for medically necessary gender-affirming surgeries.”
The total number of transgender people within the armed forces is unknown, as it is likely that not all have sought treatment.
But last month, 3,700 active-duty military personnel were diagnosed and treated for gender dysphoria, according to DHA spokesman Peter Graves.
This includes 1,240 Army soldiers, 1,046 Navy soldiers, 1,024 Air Force airmen and 278 Marine Corps.
They account for 0.3 percent of military personnel, which is lower than the 0.6 percent of transgender people in the United States American population more broadly.
As of 2020, 1,892 service members had been diagnosed and treated for gender dysphoria, including 726 Army soldiers, 576 Navy sailors, 449 Air Force airmen and 141 Marines.
At the time, this accounted for 0.1 percent of the 1,333,822 active duty military personnel.
The increase in gender dysphoria diagnoses is out of balance with the increase in transgender people in the general population, which is attributed to growing acceptance in society.
Former House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., left, gives challenge coins to U.S. Army Major Ian Brown, right, and other service members in 2019 to thank them for their service. Brown, 38, is a two-time Bronze Star winner and has transitioned from female to male while advising the Army Deputy Chief of Staff on operations and planning
According to the Defense Health Agency, the surgeries were performed in military health facilities and included removal of breasts or testicles, hysterectomies and labiaplasty — creating or reshaping the flesh around a vagina
Since 2020, a range of different gender-affirming procedures have been performed on military personnel, but the most popular has been facial reconstruction surgery.
These are designed to make people look more feminine or masculine and include reshaping the forehead and forehead, jaw and chin contours and removing or creating an Adam’s apple.
The next most popular surgery was a mastectomy, or breast removal, with 192 performed since 2021.
Rarer surgeries include a vaginectomy, an operation to remove all or part of the vagina, a clitoroplasty, a procedure to create a clitoris, and a scrotoplasty – the rearrangement of the labia to create a scrotum.
According to Mayo Clinic, three individuals also completed gender-affirming voice training in 2022, which helps transgender people tailor their voices to communication patterns that match their gender identity.
Two unclassified operations also took place between 2022 and 2023.
Individuals must be at least 17 years old to join the U.S. military.
In 2017, then-President Donald Trump announced in a series of tweets that he would ban transgender people from serving in the military.
Biden reversed the policy on his fifth day in office in January 2021.