http://www.theatlanticwire.com/national/2013/06/transgender-navy-seal-memoir/65823/
In every Navy SEAL is a memoir, it seems lately. Retired SEAL Kristin Beck's new memoir, published on Tuesday and titled Warrior Princess, is a bit different, though. In it, Beck describes how, over the course of her 20 year military career, including thirteen deployments over the globe, she slowly became more and more aware that was she meant to live life as a woman — a vexing and often tormenting realization for a long-time member of an elite all-male unit that went on to capture and kill Osama bin Laden. Beck, who identified as a man (and went by the name Chris) while in the Navy, explains that she decided to undergo hormonal therapy some time after retiring in early 2011, and eventually came out to colleagues by posting a picture of herself dressed as a woman on LinkedIn earlier this year:
That night Kris put up a new photo to her LinkedIn profile — the one taken by Christy of Kris standing in front of the American flag. This time Kris wrote, "I am now taking off all my disguises and letting the world know my true identity as a woman." Kris also changed her name on her profile page to Kristin Beck.
To Beck's surprise, her former SEAL buddies were supportive, even ecstatic:
Soon, the responses from SEALs stationed all around the world suddenly started pouring in: "Brother, I am with you ... being a SEAL is hard, this looks harder. Peace" * "I can't say I understand the decision but I respect the courage. Peace and happiness be upon you...Jim" * " ... I just wanted to drop you a note and tell you that Kris has all the support and respect from me that Chris had ... and quite possibly more. While I'm definitely surprised, I'm also in amazement at the strength you possess and the courage necessary to combat the strangers and 'friends' that I'm guessing have reared their ugly heads prior to and since your announcement. ..."
According to the book's author biography, Beck worked in the private sector as a military consultant before being tapped by the Secretary of Defense to develop technology used by active-duty soldiers. Beck's openness about her post-SEAL life makes her something of an anomaly among SEAL memoirists, who tend to write behind pseudonyms, especially when discussing classified military intelligence. By contrast, Beck includes dozens of pictures from her deployments and her life at home, pre- and post-transition, in Warrior Princess.
Having retired a few months before SEALs dispatched Osama bin Laden in Abbottabad, Pakistan, Beck's memoir is also something of a welcome relief from the proliferating genre of Navy SEAL memoirs, particularly those centered on the details of the bin Laden raid. On Monday, Vanity Fair investigated the well-documented disagreements between two members of SEAL Team Six (one of whom was recently profiled, but not named, in Esquire) about who, exactly, killed bin Laden. "It usually takes years for a full account to emerge, for details to be unclassified, and for many participants to feel comfortable talking about it," Mark Bowden concludes after siding with Esquire's version of events.
At the same time, Warrior Princess is still poised to have an effect on military policy. Even after the long-sought repeal of Don't Ask, Don't Tell, which barred gay servicemembers from discussing their sexuality, transgender individuals remain banned from entering military service. (Co-writer Anne Speckhard writes that Beck "didn't feel he was gay. But he also didn't feel he was a man, so he didn't really know how to negotiate a sexual relationship whilst in a man's body. He was lost—with no maps, no compass, and no guide.") So perhaps this memoir, which documents the secret torment of one of the U.S. military's most effective and loyal agents, will lay the groundwork for even greater inclusion in the armed forces.
discipline posted:sounds like a healthy person
it's almost as if he couldn't stand to be himself...
MadMedico posted:whilst
MadMedico posted:
Has anyone considered that maybe this guy is just trying to get a Section 8?
Edited by KilledInADuel ()
KilledInADuel posted:
trigger warning please
getfiscal posted:
Goethestein posted:the other day i was watching Hannibal and one of the killers was a girl with some apparently real mental condition that made her think that she was dead and my blood boiled in outrage because all the characters kept trying to tell her that she wasn't really dead. no wonder she had all kinds of problems, growing up in an unsupportive society like that
false equivalence is false
So I was trying to shave my legs in the women's bathroom the other day, since I noticed I missed a huge chunk of black hair on my otherwise gorgeous legs (all my girlfriends say I have better legs than them), when someone knocked on the stall door. I was so alarmed, and afraid of suffering a hate crime since I'm reasonably sure that cis women make up the biggest population of transphobes (see: radfem 2013), that I was jolted to my feet, causing me to cut my leg and, thanks to my fucking spiro, release a not inconsiderable amount of urine. The blood and pee trickled through the grouting and out under the stall door and she stopped knocking, thank god, and I made my exit as quickly as possible. I'm concerned that I didn't pass as I left though, because I didn't stop to wash my hands, which is really more of a male thing to do.
Do any of you girls have any tips on how I could have handled the situation better?
That's a really darn shame about Perovic. That actually makes me feel pretty sad. And I don't care what any of you say about my lacking female internal organs. They are all there. I just need access to them! I don't need to go find a therapists or other people or whatever to tell me otherwise. That's not the kind of help I need.
Quote from: Plom Bar
Yeah...see, this falls under delusional thinking patterns, and is definitely something you need to bring up with a psychological professional. Believing that you have organs that you don't actually have doesn't make a compelling case for your soundness of mind when getting psychologically evaluated.
Please, please see a therapist about this.
No, I am not going to actively seek out somebody just to convince me over speculation. All I want is to get fixed and move on. If I was fixed, I wouldn't even be here. I wouldn't even be having to go to groups, etc. I wouldn't be begging talk show personalities and going on somethingawful and going to trans groups. I'm desperate. I don't need to be condescended, I just came here for support on surgery, and it is because of that I have mental issues. I've seen enough quacks, and just because it seems like the most obvious solution, doesn't mean it is.
Clearly, I have come to the wrong place to get help. If I want make-up tips or something silly like that yeah, this is a good spot. Otherwise, you are all bunch of patronizing, common thought... "club members". I have more than enough merit to get surgery, it's just finding a surgeon. It's been recognized by multiple people the mental breakdown I experience from this, and to assume that I wont get surgery because I have mental issues because I need surgery, that's the stupidest assumption I've ever heard. Do you listen to yourself sometimes?
I told you, I've seen therapists multiple times in my life. You guys think you know the medical system, but you don't. You think you know everything about me you need to know, but you don't. I'm not going to get in any tissies about the science of endometriosis, or any subject about myself over any of you. I've been going through this for 10 years, and all it is is about finding the funds to get fixed. That's it. I don't need to be judged, or told by a bunch of people that I don't have female sexual organs when not a single person on this forum has seen an x-ray inside of me? Or the monstrosity between my legs? If I don't have them now, they we're removed at birth. There are still external remains, and it makes me sick every time I see them. I feel more and more broken just for that reason.