The Highwire with Del Bigtree - MILITARY-FUNDED SEX CHANGE OPERATIONS ON THE RISE

Episode Date: April 23, 2024

Editor-in-Chief of UncoverDC.com and HighWire editorial contributor, Tracy Beanz, discusses a new investigation exposing an uptick in gender reassignment surgeries funded by the US Military, and the potential threat it poses to our defense readiness.Become a supporter of this podcast: https://www.spreaker.com/podcast/the-highwire-with-del-bigtree--3620606/support.

The question we're going to ask today is, what is the purpose of a military? What is a military here to do? Here in the United States of America, I guess in many ways you would say, well, they need to be ready to defend us against enemies, both foreign and domestic. They should be fighting ready for whatever, you know, is happening. Now, there's a lot of reasons that people decide to join the military. And I would guess at the heart of it's not always so that they can rush into battle a war. but a lot of times they lack options. They lack options to potentially go to university.

And in order to do that, to come from where they're at, they see there's an opportunity that if they join the military, then they will have the option to perhaps go to college and move on to other things with the rest of their lives. But what if you met someone that said, you know why I'm joining the military? I want to get a breast augmentation surgery. You'd be like, ah, don't think that's why you would join the military,

probably not a good idea, or like a facelift. And we could even say that, you know, I've had friends like, I just want to get in better shape, I want to work out and therefore I think the military would do it. Well, it would certainly do that, but don't you think after a couple of years, now that you're all ripped, you'd be like,

but what are all the other reasons we're here? What if you were going to join the military to get a sex change operation? The Department of Defense is estimated to be one of the country's biggest employers of trans people. Staff Sergeant William Allen Rolls is one of over 15,000 transgender people believed to be serving in the United States military.

Our doctors will treat them and give them medically necessary treatment according to the protocols. They provide a path for those in service for medical treatment, gender, transition, and recognition in one's self-identified gender, and they seek to protect the privacy of all service members and to treat them with dignity and respect at all times. Outside of the military, we are doing every thing we can to try and get of all the barriers and gatekeeping that has occurred in trans health. And I feel like in the military, it's we still have those same barriers requiring a brigade commander to approve my medical treatment plan.

Transitioning has allowed me to be better as a leader. I've gotten rid of the distraction of worrying about concealing who I really was. Gender reassignment surgery will hurt our medical readiness. I mean, you can't even deploy if you're, if you're not vaccinated, you're not vaccinated. properly or you don't have the proper dental records in place. So how are we supposed to deploy people and keep our war fighting stance if somebody's just had gender reassignment surgery? And should taxpayers be paying for that?

You know, really good questions. And at the heart of this story is one of our contributors for the high wire great writer, Tracy Beans. She's also the editor-in-chief of Uncovered DC. She put out an article that has gone absolutely viral. The military doctor says transgender surgery uptick paid for with U.S. tax dollars. So let's not beat around the bush on this conversation. It's my honor and pleasure to be joined by the one, the only Tracy Beans.

Tracy, all right, what I want to say is just tell me that this isn't true. I want to be clear. I'm not against if transgender people or gay or buy or whatever, you know, sort of however you identify if you're ready to serve in the military and you can perform all the functions that are necessary, I have no judgment there. But are we saying that while you're in the military, that you can be set up and that we're going to pay for you to get a sex change operation? I mean, tell me that isn't true. I wish I could. Absolutely it is true, unfortunately. About a year ago, the DOD put out a new policy that explains all of the.

kind of working conditions you need to be able to apply and be granted one of these surgeries in the U.S. military. And you need to be serving for at least 180 days before you can go through this process. They've invested a lot of money into working group and health groups surrounding this issue within the government. And basically what this policy says is you go in. They give you a waiver if you can't get the care you want right then and there on a military, on a military base or on a military of facility. You get a diagnosis of gender dysphoria and then you go through a process within the military of getting your medicines, being on hormones, living real life experience, as they call it, as the opposite gender. And then you are eligible for a gender reassignment

surgery along with a whole host of other procedures that would always be considered elective for even active duty service members who are not transgender. So you're looking at, you're looking at Hold it back. What do you mean by that? So you're saying there's people that want surgeries that are not transgender, like what kind of surgeries would they not get if they're not transgender? Let's say a woman who wants a facelift or an eyebrow lift or a breast augmentation or liposuction or laser hair removal. Those procedures are covered underneath this policy for transgender people who are going through transition while in the U.S. military. And as you started the show. Those would be denied to anyone that's just a woman that wants to get those things or a man that wants to get those. But as long as you say I'm transgender, suddenly this whole grocery list of the types of plastic surgeries and, you know, enhancements you want to get are now available to you.

Correct. That is correct. You know, the worst problem is the way you started the show was perfect because it's true. You know, if you were gay in the military, fine. more power to you, serve your country with honor. However, a lot of people are, you're not deployable after this, Dell. You cannot deploy. And as a matter of fact, you can't even deploy technically under the rules and regulations that are on the books now with a diagnosis of gender dysphoria. It's a mental health condition that requires counseling. You cannot deploy and be overseas in the middle of a desert somewhere and need therapy once every week or once every two weeks or once

every month. The limit for therapy that the government provides is once per quarter max. And as you're going through this terrible, you know, period in my opinion, where you're, medically transitioning from one gender to the next, the counseling requirements for that are very, very intense. So you're not deployable then. You have this surgery. You're not deployable after. And most of these folks, I venture to guess, will end up with a medical discharge. And then the U.S. taxpayer will then also be paying for their health care for the rest of their lives, which is intensive. It's not just, oh, I'm just going to go in for this little surgery and come out and be fine. The rest of their lives, they're on hormones, the rest of their lives, they need surgical checkup.

They need constant medical care. So it's a big issue in our military. Let me take it back because I want to make sure that we're not misrepresenting this. Or just to clarify, when you say they have a mental disorder, obviously that's the big argument going on. now around this conversation is is this sort of gender dysphoria a mental disorder or not but does the how does the military determine that you should be eligible like you know is it i mean when you say it's a mental disorder why are you saying that how do they determine that um because in our own words that's what they call it uh the u.s military uses the ds five which is the american psychiatric

kind of rule book for mental illness and that's literally what it's called so So, you know, right on point with that comment, the conversation we're having greater in civilian world out here in culture is that this is absolutely normal and there's no problem with it. But the U.S. military itself uses the book. They open up the manual. Let's just say the DS5 on mental disorders that go. Okay, definition of gender dysphoria.

Tell me about yourself. Yep, you fit that bill. You're right in here in the book on mental disorders. Therefore, you qualify. Now we're putting you on hormones for what do you say? they have to do hormones for six months to a year, something like that. 12 months. A year, they got to act like the other gender now.

And you know, do they have like people monitoring that? And then once they've gone through all of that, now they're eligible to get a surgery and have body parts removed or added on and the rest of it. Correct. And it's very important. You heard in that intro video, the use of the term medically necessary. That term is used and abused in my opinion by the US military at will. Because I've had friends who have been in the military and needed heart surgeries,

Dell, and were not granted those heart surgeries being told they were not medically necessary. They were basically telling my friend, go get another oblation. You can't have the special procedure that will save your life. It's not medically necessary. But when it comes to this, they have an entire division to expedite these claims, these waivers, and they're granted the waivers by using the term medically necessary. And the definition is very vague, almost the same way as they, say that vaccines are safe and effective. They use the term medically necessary when it suits them.

What's really, you know, and by the way, this is a very expensive set of surgeries. Usually it's more than one. Lots of revisions can be needed. And of course, all the drugs trying to handle it, trying to make sure that whatever, you know, you've added or taken away that your body sort of accepts that massive change. So all of that's incredibly expensive, which is a deterrent for a lot of people getting these surgeries. So it seems to me that if you're, you know, in this community that wants a sex change operation and you don't have a way to pay for it, it seems like the military literally just opened up, you know, to say if you need, you know, a sex change operation, the best way to do that is come join the military. We're here for you. I mean, is that the goal?

I mean, are we just that desperate for military that, hey, there's a whole. transgender, you know, community that will come rushing in if we pay for the sex change operations? They'll never be able to serve. Probably 95% of them will never be able to serve in the U.S. military under the qualifications that are there now. You know, I have a doctor friend that came to me with this and said there's been this ridiculous uptick in these surgeries at military hospitals. I'm seeing it. All of them have been female to male transitions that this person has scene. And the interesting thing about that is one of the requirements after you go through this process through the military is you need to change your gender within the military system.

So if you came in female and you transitioned surgically to male, you need to then be a male in their system and meet the benchmarks for men in the military. Tell me without everything else put aside how many women are going to be able to meet the benchmarks for men for readiness in the military close to zero, which is the same argument that we're having with women's sports right now, right? I mean, men are so much stronger than women. It's just the way it is. So it's, it's from a readiness perspective only, forget, you know, the culture part of it. It is a huge detriment to our country. I've said this, I think, on the show before. When I was working on the doctor's television show, I actually, one of the jobs I had was I would go out

in the field and shoot a lot of surgeries. That was what the doctors did. And I shot a transition surgery from female to male, one of the most outrageous things I've ever witnessed in my life. But one thing I can tell you for sure is that the healing process from that is a long process. So when we imagine being, you know, military ready, I can't imagine. From what I witnessed in that surgery room, I can't imagine that you would be ready to, you know, charge a bunker or charge into battle, run into battle for several. years. And I mean, run into battle, have no access to a shower anywhere for days. I mean, the sacrifice our soldiers make in the middle of a desert, sweating and dirt and sand and sleeping on the ground

and whatever it takes. I mean, so many of us aren't ready for it, but guaranteed someone that just had a massive surgery, either adding or removing, you know, a critical part of the body, I just can't even imagine that. So, and you're saying that's the case, that no one's going to to send these people in the field because they need too much medical attention on a constant basis. Certainly they must need the ability to shower and clean themselves off. Yeah, it's a big, it's a big problem. It will always be a problem. And you know, we haven't seen numbers and things like that yet because again, this policy went in about a year ago. Some folks are coming up on their year now and that's why the uptick in these in these surgeries.

The other interesting thing about this, Dell, that really got me, was they really do a lot of counseling with folks about their loss of fertility, whether they're going on hormones or not or if they're going to have an operation finally. This will impact their fertility. So they do the counseling to say you might want to freeze your eggs or you might want to consider what's going to happen if you want to ever conceive as an active duty service member. And I know from research I've done outside of this in the civilian population, there are children being placed on these puberty blockers and hormones all over the country. I doubt they're being advise about the impact on their fertility when they're 18, 19, 20 years old, starting these

medicines at 13. So there is a lot of contradictory language in the DOD manual versus what the government will stand at a podium and tell you and what popular culture will try and tell you in, you know, the general public sphere. I just, I mean, I don't know how big numbers it would be, but what you're saying then is this just started a year ago, they're all coming to the end of that period in which they had to be on the gender blocking drugs and, you know, walking around as the other gender. And now it's now, now this tidal wave of its surgery time is coming. I mean, does your average military surgeon know how to do gender reassignment? Or are they bringing in specialists? Do you have any idea how they plan on handling that? Because I would think you'd have to

know how to do those surgeries. You know, it's a multi-discipline. team that they've put together in all these hospitals. And you know, the person I spoke to is at one hospital and for one branch of the, of the military. And there are several a week going on. You know, in the case of a woman transitioning to a male, a lot of the surgery, some of it's gynecological, a hysterectomy and things like that and others reconstructive. So they have plastic surgeons. They have, you know, people to operate on the voice box. They have all kinds of different doctors specializing in this. Some in the military. Some they have to contract out for. But they're really focused on keeping this inside Dell.

It's over and over and over again in the policy. You must have it here unless it's absolutely impossible for you to have it here at the hospital near you or the military hospital near you. And that makes me think that there's some sort of a financial component to this that we just haven't discovered yet. And that's obviously kind of just me guessing at this point. But I know too much about how the government works to think that this is just happening for the sake of being safe about it. One thing that just boggles the mind, I mean, this is really one of the craziest stories that I've heard is because, as I said before, why joined the military? And what is the function of a military? Clearly, this, I just, I struggled to see any value in this for the military.

I mean, whatever your personal experience and why you're doing what you're doing, that's fine. but when we are funding our military to be able to jump into action and defend this. And if I imagine a whole line of people like, sorry, I can't be the one jumping in there, even though you've paid, you're paying me to be here and you're paying for my surgeries, I'm actually not able to do that for you. I just can't imagine what taxpayer would think that this is a good idea. And frankly, like, what nation would think that this is how we should be, you know, this is a primary goal for our military. It's just one of, I mean, I'm going to be scratched

my head for days and weeks to come. Tracy, I love the work that you're doing. I love that you're doing so much of this for us. Of course, it's obvious now why this story has gone viral. Are you getting any pushback? I mean, is there an argument against your perspective? I mean, I guess I'd have to ask that. Like, who would say this is a great idea and here's why? I haven't had any pushback. which is kind of scary. I've gotten a lot of people from very, you know, various places in the military who've come to me and said, hey, you might want to take also a look at this over here because this is agency wide and it's much deeper than just what we're talking about today. So this is going to be a long series that I'm writing because it is something else, Del.

And it's not helpful for our defense at all. Wow. Well, keep up the great work, Tracy. Love the work that you're doing for us. and we'll talk to you soon. Take care. Thanks for joining us. All right. If you want to check out all the great writing that she's doing for us, go to the highwire.com. All sorts of awesome stories. Many of them go viral. She's got her finger on the pulse and go to uncoverdDC.com, of course, where she does a lot of her writing. We want to support that too.