Kristen Beck’s reputation in the SEALs was a good one and according to another former SEAL, she was, by all appearances, the “consummate guy’s guy.”
In a new book titled Warrior Princess, a former US Navy SEAL Team 6 member has come out to say she is now a woman. According to ABC News Radio, Kristen Beck, formerly Chris Beck, was a SEAL for 20 years and “fought on some of the most dangerous battlefields in the world.” Kristen, who played high school football, rode a motorcycle, served the U.S. on thirteen deployments and earned a Purple Heart and a Bronze Star, appeared to be, for all intents and purposes the perfect “man’s man.” However, after leaving the service she realized she wasn’t happy living a lie any longer.
Anne Speckhard, who co-authored Beck’s biography told ABC:
Chris really wanted to be a girl and felt that she was a girl and consolidated that identity very early on in childhood … Beck suppressed that secret for decades, however, through the trials of SEAL training and the harrowing missions that followed, growing a burly beard as she fought on the front lines of American special operations.
The book explains:
Chris had considered living as the woman he felt himself to be for a very long time, but while he was serving as a SEAL he couldn’t do it … For years Chris had turned off his sexuality like a light switch and lived as a warrior, consumed with the battle — living basically asexual. For Chris the other SEALs were brothers and in the man’s man warrior lifestyle, even if he had wanted to entertain sexual thoughts, there really was never any time to be thinking too much about sexuality.
After retiring in 2011, Beck decided it was time to “make his body match his identity — or at least start by dressing like a woman in his regular life.” She is now on hormone therapy, and is preparing for gender-reassignment surgery.
Beck writes in the book’s Preface that her purpose behind writing the book was, “to reach out to all of the younger generation and encourage you to live your life fully and to treat each other with compassion, be good to each other, especially in your own backyard (where it be high school or your community).”
Photo: Amazon
Not sure which parts of her story takes more courage. Remarkable.
Wow. Very interesting story. I can’t help thinking, though, about the fact that gender and sexuality aren’t the same thing, and that articles like this should be aware of the difference. I’m assuming that the quote about suppressing his sexual thoughts was about how he is attracted to men? That may be related to his gender identity, but that’s not the same thing as identifying as a transwoman. He could be MTF and be attracted to women. Gender identity and “sexual thoughts” are not quite the same thing. Saying “she always thought of herself as female” is not the same… Read more »
Well, you’re commenting on an excerpt, not something Kathryn actually said.
And, as an excerpt, there may be context you’re not getting.
Kristen Beck is a hero. Thirteen deployments is no joke.
Best wishes to her in the future!