The Department of Veterans Affairs will no longer provide hormone therapy and other gender-related care to transgender veteran patients not already receiving those treatments in the VA or Defense Department health systems, officials announced Monday.

Effective immediately, VA patients with gender dysphoria who aren't already taking hormones will not have access to that care. The department also will no longer provide new prosthetics, wigs or other medical devices or services such as voice or communication training to transgender patients.

Advocates said transgender veterans will not have access to the complete medical care they need due to the VA rollback of services -- originally affirmed under a directive issued under the first Trump administration -- and warned it could push more veterans into crisis, with potentially deadly outcomes.

"VA's rollback of crucial protections, specifically the elimination of Directive 1341, is a direct assault on the well-being of vulnerable LGBTQ+ veterans, jeopardizing their access to essential care," Rachel Branaman, executive director of Modern Military Association of America, said in a statement.

The Trump administration is taking the unusual step of deploying a Navy warship off the waters of the U.S. as part of its broader crackdown on security and migration along the Mexico border.

The destroyer USS Gravely departed for the deployment on March 15 and will have a Coast Guard law enforcement detachment aboard that will better enable it to conduct missions such as ship seizures and drug interdictions, according to a statement released by U.S. Northern Command over the weekend.

However, Pentagon officials did not offer more details as to why a Navy destroyer, and not a Coast Guard cutter, was chosen for the mission at the Defense Department's first briefing under the Trump administration on Monday.

Sean Parnell, the Pentagon's top spokesman, told reporters that "this deployment directly supports U.S. Northern Command's mission to protect our sovereignty" and that part of the Gravely's mission will be to "secure those water routes in defense of our southern border."