Transgendered Veterans to March on Washington

by Lisa Hoffman

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Even those who study the sociology and demographics of the military say they have virtually no idea how many transgendered G.I.s and veterans there are in America.

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 G.I.s - 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 at 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 website. "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 G.I.s 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 non-profit 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" television 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 website 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 T.A.V.A.," retired Army 1st Lt. Phyllis Randolph Frye, a transsexual, wrote on the website. "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."

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