Veterans need benefits, health care, and support. They do not need their organization taking sides in America’s fiercest culture-war fights.
Recent efforts by Democratic lawmakers to restore dedicated LGBTQ+ veteran care coordinators and identity-based programs have shifted the focus of gender policy within the Department of Veterans Affairs (VA). However, the VA has instead redesignated those positions as “care coordinators” serving all veterans and restricted the use of VA resources for promoting gender ideology.
The Veterans of Foreign Wars organization, with a long history dating back to veterans of the Spanish-American War, has taken a different path. While the VFW’s principles have traditionally united veterans across the political spectrum, this summer it declared “Happy Pride Month” and celebrated veterans specifically on the basis of sexual orientation and gender identity.
The VFW has supported LGBTQ+ veterans in the past, including backing additional VA resources in 2019 through then-National Commander B.J. Lawrence’s congressional testimony. However, the organization has increasingly engaged with contentious issues such as abortion and gender policy. In 2020, the VFW argued that the VA should provide certain abortion-related care, and in 2022 it testified in support of H.R. 345, legislation requiring the VA to offer information and counseling about abortion for veterans facing unwanted pregnancies. The VFW has continued its Pride Month statements despite internal criticism.
This shift raises concerns because policy requests framed as “health care” can include deeply contested medical interventions. Past testimony by the VFW demanded expanded resources for transgender veterans—a debate intensified by risks associated with puberty blockers, cross-sex hormones, and irreversible surgical procedures. Detransitioners have filed malpractice claims, including one case resulting in a $3.5 million settlement.
Additionally, the VFW’s advocacy now conflicts with federal policy. The VA has reinstated a ban on abortion and abortion counseling within its medical benefits package, while the Trump administration has issued executive orders directing federal agencies and the military to recognize biological sex.
The VFW claims it honors LGBTQ+ veterans since President Bill Clinton’s first Pride Month proclamation in 1999. Yet when an organization dedicated to “advocating on behalf of all veterans” takes sides in divisive moral and political disputes, it risks alienating the very veterans it is meant to represent.
The better course for veteran organizations is clear: fight for veterans’ benefits, health, dignity, and families. Leave cultural battles to those organizations created specifically for such issues.
Veterans need a VFW that puts veterans first.
