Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis ripped President Joe Biden’s veterans’ agency for prioritizing wokeism over actual patient care.
The Republican governor, himself a U.S. Navy veteran, slammed the Department of Veterans Affairs for catering to trans ideology at the expense of treating former troops who needed psychological help. DeSantis was responding to National Review reporter Caroline Downey’s report about how the VA punished psychologists who challenged the LGBTQ agenda.
As Downey reported on Tuesday, the VA punished Nina Silander, a psychologist with the VA’s Jacksonville’s office, after she co-wrote an opinion article denouncing the VA for allowing transgender women, or men who identify as women, into spaces set aside for women veterans.
Read: Florida Gov. DeSantis Rules Out Being Trump’s Number 2
Silander and co-authors Catherine Novotny and Edward Waldrep wrote in The Hill last month that Biden’s advocacy of left-wing sexual identity politics led to the VA “injecting concepts of gender ideology into our clinical work.”
The administration made clear that “the distinction that will matter in patients is their self-identified gender, not their biological sex,” they added. “We believe this effectively extinguishes the entire class of women, undermining many physical and legal protections for female veterans.”
This was important because the psychologists had a combined 44 years of experience working mostly with women sexual assault victims.
In the critical part of their op-ed, the authors noted, “Single-sex spaces within the VA — those ensuring bodily privacy, such as bathrooms, exam rooms, and medical exam areas — can now be accessed by males who self-identify as women. This VA move is part of a larger cultural pattern, most notably in women’s sports, where biological males identifying as women tend to crush the competition, and in women’s prisons that allow mixed-sex housing based on gender identity, often with tragic results.”
“We know that the perpetrators of sex crimes are usually male. We view this VA policy as a betrayal of our female patients,” they added.
Read: Florida House Signs Off On School Chaplains
“Women face a disproportionate statistical risk of assault, harassment, and voyeurism by men. And male violence patterns are unchanged by subjective feelings about gender. Long-term research shows that males identifying as women have a similar pattern of criminal behavior to other males.”
“Yet,” they continued, “female veterans are now required to share vulnerable recovery spaces with men, including specialty clinics, therapy groups, and residential recovery programs. These are violations of women’s privacy, and especially of victims’ privacy.”
According to Downey, a few days after the op-ed appeared, Silander was stripped of her duties and eventually reassigned as an administrative data entry clerk. She was reinstated last week.
Read: Florida Welcomed Israeli Technology Companies For ‘Pitch Day’ At The Capital
Her LinkedIn profile shows she still works as a psychologist with the VA in North Florida.
DeSantis, however, noted how Biden’s priorities are hurting veterans.
“There are many improvements needed to our federal VA to get veterans the care & help they need,” DeSantis posted on X on Wednesday. “But the Biden administration is choosing to fund so-called ‘gender transition’ surgeries instead with your tax dollars.”
Help support the Tampa Free Press by making any small donation by clicking here.
Android Users, Click To Download The Tampa Free Press App And Never Miss A Story. Follow Us On Facebook and Twitter. Sign up for our free newsletter.