This evening I went to a Thanksgiving potluck held in the
auditorium at the Central Library in Arlington VA, held by AGLA, the Arlington
Gay and Lesbian Alliance, and listened to transgendered former Navy Seal Kristin
Beck speak. I apologize for having to
leave a bit early to go to another event in northern VA at Tyson’s Corner.
I see I have a report of an interview by Anderson Cooper of
Kristin here on June 15, 2013 on the TV blog. I have a review of the CNN film “Lady
Valor: The Kristin Beck Story" on the movie reviews blog Sept. 4, 2014. (I had to correct the first name spelling to
end in “in” just now; my apologies.)
It’s well to remember that the lifting of “don’t ask don’t
tell” did not affect the ban on transgendered individuals from the military, as
covered on Scott Peck’ radio program way back in 1993 when he interviewed a
former enlisted person in Naval Intelligence who left the uniformed services
with the sex change but got a similar job as a civilian.
Kristin talked about the absolute standards of fitness in
the Navy Seal program, and actually transgender identity did not interfere with
that. Kristin talked about Alan Turning
(in the upcoming film “The Imitation Game”).
Kristin also talked about difficulties with the publisher of
her book, titled “Warrior Princess: A U.S. Navy Seal’s Journey to Coming Out
Transgender”, the publisher being Advances Press, which she said controls the
rights to her book. (Apparently that did
not interfere with CNN’s making the film.) I went to Amazon, and found it a bit
pricey in hardcover and paper, with a long waiting period for paper. It’s also on Kindle. But I went ahead and ordered the hardcover just
now and gave her some business.
There was a book exchange for the Library ("it's free") at the potluck. See my contribution. It's in good company.