the internet says there are more that 14k in the military.
i don't know if that is an actual count or an estimate based on the total number of troops.
according to active duty people, very few if any are actually deployed to combat regions.
I saw that, but those are estimates from an LGBTQ+ activist group, Palm Center, so they have an incentive to lie in order to swing American opinion with false propaganda. The military has not released any such figure, and it is very unclear where Palm Center got those numbers, but everybody in the media seems happy to run with them.
Seems way, way too high to me.
If you read the 2021 link in post # 1775, they mention about 1800, and that comes directly from the military. It may not be all, however, as this is the number on which the military spent money for transgender "medical" services. Also, the vast majority of those are female to male, which mainly consists of very cheap vials of testosterone and syringes. They get their haircuts the same as anybody else. Testosterone, a butch haircut, and in the military, and they think they are dudes.
Only 243 "surgeries," and I am not familiar enough with the process to know whether one person gets multiple surgeries, but I would guess that is true, meaning very, very few military personnel getting transgender surgery. Certainly not 14,000 or 15,000.
Also, if the surgery is expensive, and these folks see a way to get it "for free," that may be a big incentive for them to go into the military to finally "truly be me" or whatever. And even with that incentive, we have so very few out of 2 million service members.
I think the Palm Center numbers are BS propaganda and wishful thinking by LBGTQ+ activists. The more they can pump up those numbers, the more they hope Americans will perceive this as "normal." The Military Times numbers are much closer to revealing the correct numbers.
Note that most of the money spent was for "psychotherapy." That tells me most of what I need to know.