Military Families Warn Congress in Dire Terms: Attacking Our Trans Kids Is Costing You Troops

This story originally appeared on The Advocate.The U.S. Air Force had spent more than two decades training her husband. During those years, their family built a life around his service, moving with each assignment change, finding new communities, and helping their children start over.When their transgender daughter’s access to care narrowed where they could live, he changed career specialties to secure an assignment that would keep the family together. Then their medical coverage began to slip away.First, her mother said, care moved off base. Then prescriptions became an out-of-pocket expense. In June, a doctor’s visit was denied coverage. Their daughter, starting college, obtained university health insurance because she worried the coverage attached to her father’s service would no longer meet her needs.Related: U.S. House rejects permanent transgender military ban in defense bill voteNow, her mother says, the airman plans to retire next year. Without these pressures, she believes he would have continued serving until he reached 30 years.“You do not need to sacrifice a service member’s healthcare for their child,” the Air Force spouse told The Advocate. “You do not need to sacrifice their child’s ability to be authentic in their school.”Her family’s experience illustrates a consequence of anti-transgender policies that military parents are bringing directly to Congress. Restrictions affecting their children are changing how long service members stay, which assignments they accept, and whether their families can continue living together.In September, five families traveled to Capitol Hill with SPARTA Pride, a transgender military advocacy organization. Over 21 meetings in two days, they spoke with congressional offices from both parties about the growing difficulty of reconciling military service with their children’s needs, said Cathy Marcello, the organization’s director of programs.Marcello described families accepting assignments apart fr