President Trump may have tried to ban transgender people from the military, but the Pentagon seems to have another idea.
The Pentagon announced Wednesday that it would pay for an active-duty soldier's sex-reassignment surgery for the first time ever. In an statement shared by BuzzFeed News, a spokeswoman clarified the Pentagon's reasoning behind the move:
The surgery took place in a civilian hospital since military hospitals aren't capable of performing sex-reassignment surgeries. And because a doctor deemed the reassignment medically necessary, the Pentagon will pay for it.
A federal court partially struck down Trump's transgender ban in October, but the ban on using federal funds for reassignment surgeries was left standing. Still, the original ban exempted individuals who'd already begun sex-reassignment treatment — such as the soldier in this case.