SEAL Team 6 veteran comes out as transgender

[alexvdl]

The military currently bans trans service members, but a new memoir could open the policy to scrutiny

Comments

[zinnia_rose]

Congratulations to Kristen! I'm so glad her team members were supportive. So much for trans* people being a ~distraction~ in the military.

“Brother, I am with you … being a SEAL is hard, this looks harder. Peace”

...nice try?

[ginger_maya]

At least he's trying. Let's hope he gets educated enough to use the proper noun next time.

[poetic_pixie_13]

Haha, I noticed that, too. I found it almost endearing. Often when I've come out to people their first reaction is to be supportive but they're not quite aware of how to word it. For me it's strangely sweet. They don't fully understand (yet) but they want to make sure you know that they're there for you.

[crooked_halo]

I think that it is a nice try. It's hard to change your thinking about someone if you've thought of them as your 'brother'. So genderfail=yes, but I think that the general intention of the words was good.

I'm glad to see that the team members were supportive as well. In fact, it's more touching to me that many seem to be supportive even if they aren't quite understanding. It's harder to support something that you personally might not understand. That's not to say that I don't hope for the day when there's a baseline of understanding for the struggles that transgender people face, but I simply think it's awesome that the support is offered on the basis of Kristin being their teammate, regardless of the circumstances.

[the_physicist]

Very brave of her to come out like this in a big way - I hope it does help to change the rules!

[chasingtides]

I think this is awesome and I am also really excited about how many of my veteran friends are excited about this. (I have other reasons - drastically awful health - that would keep me from serving but I hate the fact that being trans means that it just isn't allowed.)

[executivehpfan]

I applaud her courage. I can't imagine how brave you have to be to come out in the military.

[thelilyqueen]

Yep, even with DADT out now.

I do wonder how her unit affected her experience. I can see the SEALs being even more hypermasculine than most groups given that it's a male-only unit and they're memetic badasses, but given what they go through together I can also see them going 'ok, maybe I don't exactly get this, but we spent X years watching each other's backs and going through hell together... we're good' too.

[louisiane_fille]

From everything I've ever read about SEALs, your assessment of the situation sounds dead on.

[executivehpfan]

I wish it was the latter in every single case.

[tinylegacies]

This is awesome news.

I will totally be buying her book.