Transgender veteran has a message for Trump

Kristin Beck knows what it's like to be in the military — over the course of her 20-year career as a Navy SEAL, she was deployed 13 times to places like Iraq, Afghanistan, and Bosnia, and received the Bronze Star for valor and Purple Heart for wounds suffered in combat.

Beck is a transgender veteran, and wants President Trump to know that his decision to ban transgender people from the U.S. military will have a negative impact on many, and there's no reason for this policy. "Being transgender doesn't affect anyone else," Beck, a member of SEAL Team 6, told Business Insider on Wednesday. "We are liberty's light. If you can't defend that for everyone that's an American citizen, that's not right."

In 2016, the RAND Corporation estimated there are between 1,320 and 6,630 transgender people serving in the military, and Beck, who was born Christopher Beck, said any unit with a good leader wouldn't have any issues with transgender troops. "I can have a Muslim serving right beside Jerry Falwell, and we're not going to have a problem," she said. "It's a leadership issue, not a transgender issue." What really bothers Beck is that Trump claimed his decision was partly based on the cost of services that could be used by transgender service members. "The money is negligible," she told Business Insider. "You're talking about .000001 percent of the military budget. They care more about the airplane or the tank than they care about people. They don't care about people. They don't care about human beings."

The Week

Escape your echo chamber. Get the facts behind the news, plus analysis from multiple perspectives.

SUBSCRIBE & SAVE

Sign up for The Week's Free Newsletters

From our morning news briefing to a weekly Good News Newsletter, get the best of The Week delivered directly to your inbox.

From our morning news briefing to a weekly Good News Newsletter, get the best of The Week delivered directly to your inbox.

Sign up