Brian Lewis, President of Men Recovering from Military Sexual Trauma (MR. MST) discusses the persistent invisibility of male sexual assault victims.
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The Senate Veterans Affairs Committee held a hearing last week to discuss the nomination of Robert McDonald as the new Secretary of Veterans Affairs. Mr. McDonald did a credible job in front of the committee in making commitments to the senators and explaining his vision for the Department of Veterans Affairs. The Senate confirmed Secretary McDonald this week as the new Secretary of Veterans Affairs. However, there’s one area in which both Mr. McDonald and the Committee fell down on the job.
The Committee failed to ask any questions about, and Mr. McDonald failed to make any statement about, the care crisis facing male military sexual trauma survivors in the Veterans Health Administration. In fact, members of the Committee hinted that military sexual trauma is viewed by the Committee as solely a “women’s issue.” It is this problem that continues to make men invisible as victims of sexual crimes. Before we get into the Committee’s distressing attitude toward male survivors, a little background on the Department of Veterans Affairs is helpful.
In the Veterans Health Administration, Dr. Susan McCutcheon is the Director of Women’s Health Care, Family Services, and Military Sexual Programs. She is in charge of all military sexual trauma programs within the Office of Mental Health Services. Dr. McCutcheon testified in February before the Senate Armed Service Committee’s Subcommittee on Personnel that her job title is cobbled together because “those were the special areas. But my title in no way implies that we see MST as a women’s issue.” If her statement is true that VHA just considers these as special areas, then there should be no problem with rearranging those special areas into different groupings to remove the stigma of perpetuating a social system where sexual crimes are considered solely a “women’s issue.” Despite Dr. McCutcheon’s testimony in front of the Senate Armed Services Committee Subcommittee on Personnel in February, grouping these programs together under this single director gives a very strong public perception that the Veterans Health Administration views the problem of military sexual trauma as solely a “women’s issue.”
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Another problem men face is the shrinking number of male veterans willing to seek care at the Veterans Health Administration despite a growing number of male victims in the Department of Defense. In fiscal year 2010, there were more male victims who chose to receive services for military sexual trauma than women. In fiscal year 2013, Dr. McCutcheon testified, “within our system about a little over 77,000 women who have screened positive for military sexual trauma, and for the men, it is over 57,000.” Unfortunately, the same cannot be said for the Department of Defense. In 2010, it was estimated that 10,700 male victims were assaulted while serving. In fiscal year 2013, estimates swelled to approximately 20,000 men who became victims of military sexual assault during the fiscal year. What this tells us is that men are leaving the Veterans Health Administration instead of seeking treatment for their military sexual trauma. This can have dire and tragic consequences for the veteran.
Men also face unique challenges in being granted compensation by the Veterans Benefits Administration for post-traumatic stress disorder as a result of military sexual trauma. A recent ACLU study found that in every year between 2008 and 2012, the Veterans Benefits Administration’s general “grant rate for MST-related PTSD claims has lagged behind the grant rate for other PTSD claims by between 16.5 and 29.6 percentage points every year.” Unfortunately for men, “every year between 2008 and 2011, a gap of nearly ten percentage points separated the overall grant rate for PTSD claims brought by women and those brought by men.” What this tells us is that male victims face invidious discrimination by the Veterans Benefits Administration based upon their status as a crime victim and because of their gender.
Yet at the hearing to confirm Mr. McDonald, all of this was ignored by the Committee. No Senator made prolonged remarks about MST care at the VHA or equalizing the claims gap at the VBA. Only Senator Richard Blumenthal (D-CT) made a passing reference to MST and that was in the context of women’s health care. It is vitally important that men who are victims of sexual crime receive equal access to treatment at the VHA and equal consideration for benefits at the VBA. That is what is sorely lacking at this point in time. That is the challenge Secretary McDonald inherits.
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Photo: Charles Dharapak/AP
Brian, you’re surprised? The VA is in a crisis = male majority affected. Would this crisis be looked at if it was a general healthcare issue that primarily affected men? We know the answer would be “no.”