Gina Roberts is the only transgender chapter president in Log Cabin Republicans Club. Photo by Ken Stone

The president of San Diego’s Log Cabin Republican Club is calling on local politicians to work to “counter the misrepresentation” of how much transgender troops cost the country.

Rand Corp. study: “Assessing the Implications of Allowing Transgender Personnel to Serve Openly” (PDF)

Gina Roberts, the only transgender chapter president in the national group, reacted to President Trump’s tweeted ban on transgender service members and last week’s “guidance” to the Pentagon.

Her club stands by its opposition to any proposed general ban on transgender Service Members, she said in a statement Monday.

“We believe that a complete assessment as was previously requested by Secretary of Defense [James] Mattis will reveal that these patriotic service members are not an undue burden on the military service, and that these members should be able to serve openly and proudly,” Roberts said.

The San Diego Log Cabin club — a group of LGBT Republicans — also urged “representatives of the people of San Diego to work with others in the Republican Party to counter the misrepresentation of the statistics concerning transgender service members surgical costs and their supposed period of on non-deployability.”

She said these figures incorrectly put an “undue and unreasonable burden” on transgender service members.

She noted a June 2016 Rand Corp. report titled “Impact of Transgender Personnel on Readiness and Health Care Costs in the U.S. Military Likely to Be Small.”

The study estimates the number of transgenders serving in the active component of the U.S. military at between 1,320 and 6,630 out of a total of about 1.3 million service members.

“However, not all of these transgender service members would be expected to seek medical treatment related to their gender status or become nondeployable,” the study said.

It quoted Agnes Gereben Schaefer, a senior political scientist at RAND, as saying: “Only a small portion of service members would likely seek gender transition-related medical treatments that would affect their deployability or health care costs.”

The study estimates that between 30 and 140 new hormone treatments could be initiated a year and 25 to 130 gender transition-related surgeries could be utilized a year among active component service members.

“Additional health care costs could range between $2.4 million and $8.4 million, representing an approximate 0.13 percent increase,” the study said.

Meanwhile, two federal lawsuits were filed Monday against the White House, alleging that a ban against transgender people serving in the military is unconstitutional.

“Plaintiffs include both transgender people who are currently serving in the military and transgender people who wish to serve but are no longer able to because of the ban,” NPR reported.

Human Rights Campaign National Press Secretary Sarah McBride said in a statement: “It is an unconscionable and unconstitutional breach of trust for the president to single out brave transgender service members and able recruits for discrimination.”