Two House lawmakers are calling on the Department of Veterans Affairs to restore dedicated LGBTQ+ Veteran Care Coordinator positions and specialized support networks after the agency changed the structure of the program earlier this summer.
Reps. Seth Moulton, D-Mass., and Chrissy Houlahan, D-Pa., said in a letter Wednesday to VA Secretary Doug Collins that recent department directives eliminated dedicated LGBTQ+ Veteran Care Coordinator positions, dismantled specialized support networks and restricted tailored healthcare resources for LGBTQ+ veterans.
The lawmakers asked VA to bring back dedicated coordinator positions across its health care systems, rescind restrictions on LGBTQ+ support groups and staff training and explain how the department will ensure veterans retain access to those support networks.
The letter follows two internal Veterans Health Administration communications released this year that changed the designation of the coordinators and the national support activities around the program.
A June 12 memorandum from VHA Under Secretary for Health John Bartrum directed that LGBTQ+ Veteran Care Coordinators be redesignated as “Care Coordinators.” The memo said the coordinators would facilitate health care and benefits for all veterans and restricted the use of VHA funds, official time, facilities or other resources for activities promoting what it called “gender-ideology or gender-identity.”
The memo also required VHA officials to certify that activities deemed noncompliant had ended.
According to an internal VHA email obtained by The Advocate, the program’s specialized national support activities and resources were to be discontinued. The email directed the discontinuation of monthly coordinator calls, regional leadership calls, new-coordinator orientations and the program’s community of practice. National communications, processes and procedures specific to the program were also to end, while dedicated Microsoft Teams channels and SharePoint resources were to be archived.
VHA Directive 1340, issued Sept. 21, 2022, required VA medical facilities to designate at least one LGBTQ+ Veteran Care Coordinator. The directive says the program was established in 2016 and that the coordinators’ duties had expanded since its inception.
Those duties included helping veterans access appropriate services, identifying health care needs, addressing gaps or conflicts in clinical processes and maintaining relationships with community organizations and local resources.
The lawmakers describe the LGBTQ+ Veteran Care Coordinator positions as eliminated. The June VA memorandum, however, says the positions were redesignated as “Care Coordinators.” Publicly available documents do not establish that individuals who previously served as LGBTQ+ Veteran Care Coordinators were removed from VA employment.
VA’s current public-facing webpages use different designations for care coordinators at different facilities.
For example, VA Tampa’s care-coordinator webpage, updated Aug. 24, identifies an “LGBTQ+ Veteran Care Coordinator.” The page also provides information about visitation, family definitions, confidentiality of sexual-orientation and sexual-behavior information, and procedures for changing names or sex in medical records.
Meanwhile, VA Tennessee Valley’s care-coordinator webpage, updated Aug. 25, identifies a “Veterans Care Coordinator.” The page continues to list services including mental health care, hormone therapy, gender-affirming prosthetics and HIV and sexually transmitted infection testing and treatment.
The VA did not respond to a request for comment by the time of publication.
Moulton and Houlahan said the changes could create confusion and discourage LGBTQ+ veterans from seeking medical and mental health care. They cited the history of discrimination faced by LGBTQ+ service members and veterans and called for VA to restore the specialized support infrastructure.
“Our heroes earned their care through courage, duty, and sacrifice. We owe them nothing less than our unwavering commitment to their health, well-being, and dignity,” Moulton and Houlahan wrote.
