The Pentagon has agreed to pay for an active-duty soldier’s gender-transition surgery, according to a report.
The sex-reassignment surgery, which is for an infantry soldier who identifies as a woman, was approved Monday by Vice Admiral Raquel Bono, head of the Defense Health Agency, officials told NBC News.
It’s the first gender-transition surgery to be approved under a waiver that allows the Pentagon to fund such operations — and was scheduled to take place at a civilian hospital on Tuesday, the outlet reported.
The soldier earned her Combat Infantry Badge in Operation Anaconda in Afghanistan in 2003.
President Trump in August signed a memo that would ban the military from paying for sex-reassignment surgery, and prevent the Pentagon from recruiting transgender people.
A federal judge temporarily blocked the ban in late October, saying that it was “driven by a desire to express disapproval of transgender people generally.”