VA Denials Skyrocket — Survivors Left Behind

New data shows the Department of Veterans Affairs is still denying far more disability claims tied to military sexual trauma than to combat injuries, raising hard questions about how our government treats its own warriors.

Story Snapshot

MST-related post-traumatic stress claims are denied at higher rates than combat-related claims.
Federal watchdogs found the Department of Veterans Affairs mishandled or wrongly denied thousands of MST claims.
The Department of Veterans Affairs says it now accepts indirect “marker” evidence when incidents were never formally reported.
Under the Trump administration, pressure is growing to clean up the bureaucracy and honor victims without creating new loopholes.

Higher Denial Rates For MST Than Combat Claims

A major study of Department of Veterans Affairs disability claims found that veterans seeking help for post-traumatic stress linked to military sexual trauma faced more denials than those whose post-traumatic stress came from combat.^[1] Researchers reviewed more than 31,000 military sexual trauma claims and over 100,000 combat claims. They reported that about 27.6 percent of military sexual trauma claims were denied, compared to only 18.2 percent of combat-related post-traumatic stress claims.^[1] That gap remained even after they adjusted for age, race, and gender.^[1]

Those numbers confirm what many veterans and advocates have warned about for years: claims based on events that are hard to document often hit a brick wall at the Department of Veterans Affairs. Military sexual trauma is rarely reported in real time, which means many victims lack a clean paper trail. Yet the mental injuries are just as real as those from a roadside bomb. When the system demands proof victims never had a safe chance to create, it tilts the playing field against them by design.^[1]^[7]

Watchdogs Expose Mishandled And Wrongly Denied Claims

The Department of Veterans Affairs Office of Inspector General dug into how the agency handled these cases and found serious failures. In one review, the Veterans Benefits Administration processed about 12,000 military sexual trauma-related post-traumatic stress claims per year, and in 2017 it denied roughly 5,500 of them.^[3]^[1] Investigators sampled 169 denied claims and found that 82 were incorrectly processed, pointing to an error rate near 49 percent for denied claims.^[3]^[1] Problems included skipped development steps, poor training, and weak quality controls.^[3]

Veterans groups and even civil liberties advocates have used these findings to argue that survivors of military sexual assault, especially women, have been treated unfairly in the disability system.^[5] One report found that from 2008 to 2012, the Department of Veterans Affairs granted post-traumatic stress claims tied to military sexual trauma at a significantly lower rate than post-traumatic stress claims unrelated to sexual trauma.^[5] That pattern lines up with the more recent study showing higher denial rates for military sexual trauma claims, suggesting this is not a one-year fluke but a long-running structural problem inside the bureaucracy.^[1]^[5]^[3]

Department Of Veterans Affairs Policy Says Evidence Rules Are Easier

On paper, the Department of Veterans Affairs insists it is not punishing veterans for failing to report an assault. Official guidance states that military sexual trauma itself is not a disability rating; instead, the agency rates conditions like post-traumatic stress, depression, or anxiety that result from it.^[2] To win compensation, veterans must still show a current diagnosis, an in-service event, and a medical link between the two, but the Department of Veterans Affairs says it allows both direct and indirect evidence to prove the trauma occurred.^[2]^[3]^[4]

The Department of Veterans Affairs explains that veterans can submit service records, Defense Department sexual assault forms, investigative reports, civilian police reports, counseling records, and statements from chaplains, family, roommates, or fellow service members.^[3]^[4] When those do not exist, the rules allow “marker” evidence, such as sudden drops in performance, requests for transfer, pregnancy or sexually transmitted disease tests, or new problems like substance abuse or panic attacks around the time of the alleged assault.^[4]^[2] The agency also says it cannot deny a claim just because there is no official incident report in the file.^[2]^[3]

Grant Rates Are Improving, But Gaps And Frustration Remain

Under pressure from Congress, veterans groups, and watchdogs, the Department of Veterans Affairs has reported higher grant rates in recent years. The agency says the current grant rate for conditions linked to military sexual trauma is about 72 percent, up from 50 percent in 2015 and 68 percent in 2020.^[2]^[5] It has urged veterans whose claims were denied before August 2018 to refile so that specially trained staff can review them using updated standards that recognize indirect evidence.^[4]^[7]

How are military sexual trauma (MST) claims different from other VA disability claims? An accredited VA disability lawyer explains. pic.twitter.com/VikAeLkXmM

— Woods & Woods, The Veterans Firm (@TheVeteransFirm) June 9, 2026

Even with those gains, serious concerns remain for conservatives who value both justice for victims and fairness to taxpayers and accused service members. High error rates in denials show that the federal bureaucracy still struggles to follow its own rules, which undercuts trust in the system for everyone.^[3]^[1] At the same time, the use of indirect markers, if not applied carefully, can drift toward guesswork. That is why many Trump supporters argue the real fix is not more vague standards, but better training, clear rules, and real accountability for caseworkers who ignore evidence on either side.^[7]