Last month, a retired Navy SEAL came out as transgender. Those still in uniform, however, must serve in silence.
USA Today (“Transgender Troops Serve In Silence“):
It’s unknown how many transgender troops are serving in the U.S. military, largely because they would get kicked out for coming out. About 700,000 Americans in a population of more than 300 million are transsexuals, according to a 2011 study by the Williams Institute at the UCLA School of Law.
Another milestone in June: Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel seemed to sanction their service when he addressed a Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual and Transgender Pride (LGBT) event at the Pentagon. But there was a catch: civilians can switch sexes and keep their defense jobs. Troops can’t. Unlike allies Great Britain, Israel and Canada, the U.S. military disqualifies transgender troops for health reasons.
“I was at the Pentagon when Secretary Hagel was saying we’re here to celebrate LGBT service,” says a transgender Army sergeant who joined the Army as a woman. The sergeant spoke on condition of anonymity to stay in the service.
“I’m kind of looking around for the rest of Ts,” the soldier says, referring to transgender troops. Other troops could celebrate marriage equality, the sergeant says, but not the transsexuals.
Transgender pride extends to Defense Department civilian employees such as Amanda Simpson, a senior Army official. Simpson, named to her post by President Obama, is the highest-ranking openly transgender official. She declined to comment for this story.
That pride stops with troops transitioning to the opposite sex.
For now, the Pentagon has no plans to cross that line, says Navy Lt. Cmdr. Nathan Christensen, a spokesman. They’re medically disqualified, according to Pentagon regulations. Army regulations, for instance, prohibit transvestism.
Tom Vanden Brook found two serving troops willing to share their story:
As a Southerner, a black woman and a member of the Baptist church, the sergeant kept her sexuality secret and her sense that she was a man buried even deeper. The sergeant’s age is “in the 20s,” declining to be more specific.
“I joined because I wanted to serve,” the sergeant says. “I didn’t think of gender or the sexual-identity piece. My father was a soldier. I wanted to come home in a uniform like him.”
After a deployment to Iraq in 2011, the sergeant decided it was time to identify as a man.
“I was ready to match my outward appearance with my inner being,” the sergeant says. “I wanted to start to transition. I knew that it was going to be a battle with my family and even my friends. But the worst came when I had to bypass my integrity — lie to my soldiers and not bring my whole self to work.”
The transition began with working out, eating differently, bulking up. Then, under medical supervision, the sergeant began taking synthetic testosterone, the male hormone. The sergeant plans to have a mastectomy to remove breast tissue but is uncertain about surgery to change genitals.
As a reservist, the sergeant has a civilian job and goes to work dressed as a man. For Army drills on weekends, the woman must emerge.
“It’s kind of a double life,” the sergeant says. “In my civilian life everyone just knows he, just him. I go in with my facial hair, and I’m just a guy. When I put the uniform on, I shave. The feminine voice comes out if I can. Whatever I can muster that’s feminine. That’s when the sergeant who’s supposed to be female comes out.”
[…]
The second soldier, a lieutenant colonel, is a combat veteran, 45, with a background in special operations. The soldier reports for duty by day in a man’s uniform.
At night and on weekends: skirt, heels, makeup.
“I might be a 45-year-old guy mentally, if I choose to think like that,” the lieutenant colonel says. “But as a girl I’m like 16. Things I never learned as a little girl growing up that Mamma would have taught me in terms of all the feminine virtues.”
The choice is shattering the lieutenant colonel’s life. There’s a divorce and living apart the soldier’s children. Retirement from the Army looms in a few months. Job performance has suffered. Troops in transition might need to leave or take a break from service, the lieutenant colonel says. Once they’ve fully transitioned, they should be able to do the job.
“Three monstrous stresses: No. 1, transitioning from male to female,” the lieutenant colonel says. “No. 2, transitioning out of the military and wondering what I want to be when I grow up. I just never realized that that was housewife. The third, the divorce.”
How does the lieutenant colonel cope?
“I drink a lot.”
For years, the lieutenant colonel has repressed femininity.
“I always felt uncomfortable in my body and I didn’t know why,” the lieutenant colonel says. “I was deathly afraid of being gay. That was the biggest sin you could have in my family. One thing that my dad hated more than anything. I was never allowed to have a G.I. Joe because my dad wouldn’t allow dolls in the house. I had no sisters. It was an all-male, all-the-time environment.”
Throughout the soldier’s career, the lieutenant colonel chose the most physically demanding jobs and succeeded at them. The soldier got married, had kids, deployed to Iraq and Afghanistan.
The lieutenant colonel considers himself a conservative and “constitutionalist” who viewed “don’t ask, don’t tell” as illegal and was pleased it was repealed.
Since February, the lieutenant colonel has been leaving a one-bedroom apartment dressed as a woman and has started to use a woman’s name.
The lieutenant colonel would like to lose his baritone, but surgery to lose his penis requires more thought.
The culture is much further away from coming to grips with transgender issues than homosexuality and I don’t think the military is ready to deal with this issue quite yet. But it has to be hell on these people, however many of them there are, trying to both come to grips with their identity and yet hide it from those to whom they’re closest.
