President Trump banned transgender military members and cited “tremendous medical costs,” but here’s what trans service members actually cost

In a string of Tweets Wednesday morning, President Donald Trump announced a ban on transgender people serving in the military due to their “tremendous medical costs” — costs that experts have estimated are less than the price of a pack of gum per service member per month.

Last year, the U.S. military allowed openly transgender people to serve for the first time. Aaron Belkin, a professor at San Francisco State University, estimated in a Reuters story at the time that providing transition care to service members –- including both gender reassignment surgeries and hormones — would cost just 22 cents per service member per month when spread out among the entire military force. He estimated that transition care would total around $5.6 million a year, a small fraction of the military’s $47.8 billion annual health care budget. Estimates by the Rand Corporation last year fell into a similar range.

“President Trump this morning simply lied about the data,” Belkin says.

Critics were quick to point out the relative cost of transgender military care.

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There were an estimated 8,800 actively serving transgender members of the U.S. military in 2014, according to the Williams Institute, roughly 0.6% of the total number of active duty personnel that year.

This article originally appeared in Time.com