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Polare 63 >> Article 9
Transgendered Veterans to March on Washington
by Lisa Hoffman (Scripps
Howard News Service)
One is a retired Navy commander who served as a nuclear-submarine
engineer. Another refueled B-52 bombers. Others fought in Korea and
Vietnam and one infantry sergeant is now in combat in Iraq.
All these people, and perhaps hundreds more, are members of what is
probably the least-known U.S. military minority - transgendered
troops.
These GIs - past and present - fall somewhere on a general gender
spectrum that stretches from cross-dressers, who wear clothes of the
opposite sex, to those whose genitalia were ambiguous at birth, to
transsexuals, most of whom seek surgery to change their gender.
On May 20, a contingent of the Transgender American Veterans
Association will come to Washington to openly pay their respects at
memorials to fallen U.S. soldiers and give tribute to their fellow
troops who have silently served their nation.
As they did last year, when Arlington Cemetery about 50 transgendered
vets took part in their first but little-noticed "march" on
Washington, this year's participants also hope to shine a light on the
contributions of those in uniform, present and past, who suffer from a
"gender-identity disorder" and all the emotional pain that can
accompany it.
They also hope to call on the Department of Veterans Affairs to
provide them "fair and equal treatment" for what is recognized by the
medical profession as a treatable medical condition.
Last year, the participants "for the first time in their lives ...
mourned their fallen compatriots while standing proudly and openly as
themselves," association secretary Karen Rice said on the group's Web site. "We
know, as some may not, that there are those who serve in silence now."
How many there are is unknown. While other controversial populations
in uniform - such as gays and lesbians - are implicitly acknowledged
by the brass to exist, those with aberrant genders remain deep in the darkest corner
of the proverbial closet.
Even those who study the sociology and demographics of the military
say they have virtually no idea how many transgendered GIs and
veterans there are in America.
"Very, very little is known about transgendered service members," said
Aaron Belkin, a professor and director of the Center for the Study of
Sexual Minorities in the Military at the University of California-Santa
Barbara, which has just commissioned its first study on the subject.
Robyn Walters, a transsexual Navy veteran who runs an online
discussion group said about 500 vets are
members of the group - almost double what it was when the nonprofit began in 2003. She said
she personally knows of about 1,000 transgendered vets. Beyond that,
Walters said, "there are no statistics."
Walters' own story is akin to those of others in the group, most of
whom waited until they retired to "transition" to the opposite sex.
A U.S. Naval Academy graduate with a doctorate in engineering from the
Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Walters rose to the rank of
commander during a twenty-year career, when her name was Robert Walters and she was a
nuclear submarine designer.
Married with four daughters for twenty years, Walters, 67, sublimated
her feminine impulses until her last child was in college. Through the
Internet and a spiritual journey, Walters came to terms with the fact that "I always
knew I never felt right as a man."
Walters said the sex transformation four years ago was liberating,
allowing her to finally be what she was inside. Divorced from her
wife, Walters now is married to a 20-year Navy vet who used to be a female before a sex
change.
Walters and experts on transsexuals say it is common for transgendered
men to choose "macho" occupations, hoping to end their internal
confusion and prove they are "real" men. "What's more macho than being a (Navy) SEAL?"
said Tarynn Witten, a Virginia Commonwealth University professor who
is conducting the study on transgendered vets commissioned by the sexual-minorities
center.
In uniform, Walters said, transgendered vets have been elite
commandos, explosive ordnance experts and front-line infantry troops.
After their service, many go on to be police officers, firefighters and air-traffic controllers.
And unlike Corporal Klinger - the character in the "M*A*S*H" TV series
who dressed as a woman in a ploy to be sent home from the Korean War -
these veterans were as dedicated and patriotic as any other soldiers, proud to serve
and defend their country, Walters and others said.
After the transgendered-vet events in Washington last year, some who
attended posted accounts on the group's Web site about the
extraordinary emotion that surrounded their visit and their open participation as transsexuals.
They marveled that other "normal" tourists neither snickered nor stared
as they paid homage at the Vietnam Veterans Memorial, the new World War II memorial
and laid a wreath at the Tomb of the Unknowns at Arlington National
Cemetery.
It was the wreath-laying that most moved the vets to tears. They could
not believe that the full name of their organization was actually
uttered by the tomb's honor guard.
"It is always a struggle to get people to give us the simple human
dignity of using our name. I was expecting him to short us by saying
TAVA," retired Army 1st Lt. Phyllis Randolph Frye, a transsexual, wrote on the Web site.
"But as he stood in his dress blues, at that sacred site and
proclaimed the words, 'This wreath is being placed by the transgender American Veterans
Association,' I began to cry."
(E-mail Lisa Hoffman at HoffmanL@shns.com )
Ed. Note:
Is it time for Australia to form a similar association of tg
ex-service personnel? I sometimes joke that I am the only woman in
Australia to hold the National Service medal, but I am sure that is not true and that there
are tg ex-service personnel with longer and more significant service
than mine. Write to Polare and express your views.
Polare is published in Australia by The Gender Centre
Inc. which is funded by the Department of Community Services under the
S.A.A.P. Program and supported by the
N.S.W. Health Department through the
AIDS and Infectious Diseases Branch. Polare provides a
forum for discussion and debate on gender issues. Advertisers are advised that all advertising is their responsibility under
the Trade Practices Act. Unsolicited contributions are welcome, though no guarantee is made by the Editor that they will be
published, nor any discussion entered into. The editor reserves the right to edit such contributions without notification.
Any submission which appears in Polare may be published on our internet site. Opinions expressed in this publication do not
necessarily reflect those of the Editor, The Gender Centre Inc.I, the
Department of Community Services or the N.S.W. Department of Health.
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