For those who have only known me for the last decade, they’d be shocked at how violent I was. I was suspended, whether in-school or out-of-school, probably a half dozen times. While in college, I was suspended from a city league softball league because of a profanity-laced outburst that nearly turned violent. I was constantly getting in fights, both physical and verbal. I sought to hurt anyone that crossed me. In short, I was an insufferable ass. Turns out, that’s not exactly a healthy way of dealing with internal pain. This draw towards violence all culminated in choosing a profession that allowed me to not only be violent, but to also be held in high esteem by society the more violent I was. I decided to join the Army. And I didn’t just sign up for the Army, but I actually enlisted to become a Special Forces soldier. Surely this will cure me. It doesn’t get any “manlier” than a Green Beret. A fractured vertebrae, though, derailed that goal, so I became your run of the mill infantryman.
To be honest, this was the beginning of the end for my painful delusion of “manhood”. In my efforts to run from who I was, I actually planted the seeds that led me to Natalie. I served in the Army for just over 6 years. I deployed to Iraq for 13 months from 2006-2007. I found a place where I could indulge my violent desires, and I knew I could effectively do so without fear of consequence while being hailed as a hero by hundreds of millions. My thoughts on my time in the Army are complex though, as I didn’t really hate it. Yes, I have completely rejected all forms of violence today, which certainly impacts how I reminisce upon those days, but I also have an undying love for those I served with. It was fun. Swooping in on a Blackhawk in the dead of night to raid a house certainly gets the adrenaline pumping. I lived in Alaska, where moose would literally wander into our backyard. I lived in Georgia…well, that just sucked. My deepest friendships, too, were formed here. While I have rejected violence, my love for those with whom I served has not lessened in the slightest.
I can never say I regret joining the Army, because the Army is where I met some of the finest human beings, and allies in my transition, that I’ve ever known. The Army is where I met people like Ricky, who was the kind of alpha male that I never would have imagined associating with in the "real world". He was wild. He partied. He was the anti-me. I was married with a baby at home. We didn’t party together, but he was also the kind of man who spent the night with my wife and I on my last night before I left for Iraq. He knew it would be hard for my wife and I, especially since our marriage had been on rocky ground the year prior, so he wanted to be there for us. He was “Uncle Ricky” to my son. The Army is also where I met Will. I struggle to find the words to use in talking about Will. Finding the right words is hard enough. Finding them through tears is soul-wrenching. We had met at what is called a TRADOC unit. At this point, the Army had already broken our bodies. We shared a passion for baseball. We shared a love for our wives. We shared a contempt for our NCO (looking at you, Howerton). He became a safe space for me in the years that I knew him, and if you’ve ever struggled with the inner torment that is so common among my trans brothers and sisters, you will know just how necessary safe spaces are for your survival. He actually may have been my first ever safe space, outside of my wife. He was the first person I met in the Army that I came out to. After I told him about who I really am, he also became one of my fiercest champions. He encouraged me, and was a brother to me. He will always be my brother. The Army placed Ricky and Will in my life, and I became a better human being as a result. The Army also took them away from this world, from their wives, their children, and their friends as they both succumbed to the unseen wounds of unnecessary war. This is why I can only describe my thoughts on the Army as complex. I blame the Army for the loss of men I’d never have met without the Army.
Seeds. As I mentioned, the seeds that led to my blooming into Natalie were planted on that day in early August 2004 when I arrived at Sand Hill for Basic Training. I had grown up in a sheltered world. My life started as that lonely goldfish trapped in a water-filled plastic bag you get at a fair. Attending Texas A&M started chipping away at that world, but if anyone is familiar with Aggieland, you’ll know it’s not exactly known for its diversity. I may have been in a larger fish tank, but I was surrounded by fish that mostly looked just like me. The Army, though, is a world in which you will meet someone from every conceivable walk of life. It is an ocean teeming with such a diversity of life that it leaves one in awe to see it function as it does. And you aren’t simply meeting them in passing. You develop deep meaningful relationships with people whom you’d, under any other circumstance, never so much as look at. This shattered that bubble. I began to see that the people whom I had been raised to see as evil (i.e. people who sinned differently than me) were actually people I’d trust with the lives of my own children. Learning to love people unlike you is possibly the surest way to radically change one’s life. As I began to be exposed to and love people that didn't look or think like me, I began to find the words for which I had long searched. I began to come to grips with who I was. Loving others made me want to love myself for the first time. I finally began to understand.
Now, the fear was still very real. Knowing internally that you are transgender is one thing. Telling others is a much larger hill to climb. But actually living as myself was a mountain that I never imagined that I could scale. In my mind, it was Everest...something beautiful you look at from afar, but you don't dare attempt to climb. I mean, I was married to a heterosexual woman. I had two children, one of whom is autistic. How could I be so selfish as to upend their world like that? What would people say? Would my family and friends all reject me? Divorce is so common among people in my situation, so how could I have the audacity to even put my marriage to my best friend and woman of my dreams at risk? But those are questions and fears to be addressed later. First I had to get out of the Army.