"In July, the Freedom Caucus, a bloc of 30 strong conservatives in the House, threatened not to vote for the budget unless President Trump instituted some prohibition on paying for gender reassignment surgeries and hormone treatments for transgender people serving in the military. Under Obama, transgender troops had no longer been banned from openly serving, although new recruits would not be allowed to join until July 1, 2017. On June 30, the day before the deadline, Mattis signed a memo delaying implementation by six months to review "the readiness and lethality of the force." During the campaign, Trump had proclaimed himself a supporter of LGBT rights. Now he told Bannon, "What the fuck? They're coming in here, they're getting clipped"- a crude reference to gender reassignment surgery. Someone had told him that each surgery cost $250,000, an inflated number. "Not going to happen," he said. Gender-reassignment surgery can be expensive but is also infrequent. In a Pentagon-commissioned study, the RAND Corporation "fouund that only a few hundred of the estimated 6,600 transgender troops would seek medical treatment in any year. RAND found those costs would total more than $8 million per year.""