As we noted, California taxpayers were the first to pay for the sexual-reassignment surgery of a violent criminal, Shiloh Heavenly Quine, who as Rodney Quine gunned down Shahid Ali Baig, a father of three, then stole his car. Taxpayers nationwide have also been footing the bill for sex-change surgery, and Congress just decided that they will continue to do so.

The Obama administration required the Pentagon to pay for soldiers’ gender-transition surgeries and ensuing hormone therapy. According to Rep. Vicky Hartzler, Missouri Republican, such surgery could cost the military $1.3 billion over the next decade. The surgery involves months of recovery time, during which the patients are undeployable and unable to do their jobs. Hartzler offered an amendment to the annual defense-authorization act that would forbid the military from spending money for medical treatment related to gender transition. On July 13, a full 24 Republicans joined Democrats to shoot down the amendment, which Democrats called a bigoted attack on diversity, and so forth. Taxpayers might take a few other factors into account.

The U.S. military has one job, to defend the nation and win wars. There is no right to join the U.S. military, which has age requirements and other standards. Once in the military, nobody has a right to sex-change surgery, a costly construct and an elective procedure. In reality, nothing can be a right that puts mandates and costs on other people. Putting taxpayers on the hook for sex-change operations does nothing to enhance the military’s capability to fight, win, and protect the nation. It is therefore military waste, and Congress just ensured that such waste will continue. That is a bad deal for taxpayers, just like those M-1 tanks the generals don’t find useful but that Congress wants to keep buying.

Meanwhile, Shiloh Heavenly Quine has been transferred from Mule Creek, a tough men’s prison, to the women’s prison at Chowchilla, where life will be much easier. And thanks to judge Jon Tigar, a one-man robed politburo, taxpayers will now be springing for Shiloh Heavenly Quine’s jewelry and sartorial needs, right down to the bracelets, earrings, and “compression tops.” California leads the nation in the kind of change taxpayers can’t believe in.