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And now welcome to the award winning best of the left podcast with groups today from sex out loud on being a Minnesota trans atheist dance savage lacy green and radio dispatch.

Kristen Beck is an author activist and veteran who served for 20 years through 13 deployments as a U.S Navy seal in her military career she distinguished herself with special operations forces at seal team one seal team five naval special warfare development group also known as seal team six and the headquarters at so calm.

She received the bronze star with valor the purple heart a defense meritorious service medal and many other awards she retired in 2011 with the rank of senior chief and continued high level security work for the U.S. government including the Pentagon.

In 2013 she appeared on CNN with Anderson Cooper and spoke about her life as a transgender person beginning as a boy from a Christian family all the way through her time in the seals.

Then they made a whole documentary about her the CNN documentary lady valor it premiered in the month of September it's been seen by over 10 million people and you can see it now too because it's streaming and available to record.

She works daily with the Pentagon and government officials toward toward true liberty and equality within the ranks of the department of defense.

Welcome to sex out loud Kristen thank you very much. That's quite quite an introduction but that's all true that's all you which is pretty remarkable so I want to I want to set the stage for people who may not.

No who you are and just start with your distinguished Navy seal you've been deployed and in combat all over the world.

You had what was pretty intensely macho a job and yet while you're a seal you were having these other feelings about who you really were is that true.

Yes hold it here is just one of those points to say that you know everyone's different and and women are strong and powerful and we can do pretty much anything we want.

Even be a Navy seal even be a Navy seal and so what made you decide to come out as a trans woman after all these years.

Well virtually I was keeping it kind of quiet just kind of going on with the radar and I think it's like everybody we just want to have a regular normal life you know walking out of the street and.

And just kind of do our job and and not be center of attention you know especially as a Navy seal I didn't really I never wanted any of this but then I started looking around and seeing and transgender community and the LGBT community at large and especially within the military.

Just the amount of prejudice the bullying and then you look at the stereotypes and misinformation out there there's just so many people in our country and I think around the world that just do not understand what transgender is you know soon as you think about someone who's transgender you think about a dude in a dress and you start thinking about sex and fetish and you know everything else just pops in your mind and and really gender and sex is a total separate.

Being transgender is not about fetish or about the clothing it's about your identity it's about who you are you know you know way inside you know way down like a spirit level or soul level whatever you want to call it and so that bully is it that bullying and the amount of prejudice I just wanted to see if I could fix some of that there's so many transgender people around the country and around a country America.

They landed a free in a quality and all the other stuff we can flag way for and there's a transgender person killed almost every week and a girl is just murdered in a Southern Southern California just a few days ago and it's just it's a polling and so they're freedom the liberty and that pursuit of happiness and all those other things I can again wave the flag.

All the things that I defended as a Navy seal and as someone in the military and all the stuff that I stayed in for just wasn't finding you know I didn't find it myself in a lot of ways and I was looking around and I was like there's so many people in our country that still don't have true liberty or truth freedom you know they're all buttoned up and living in fear and it's just wrong and so this is a small way I can bring some happiness to a group of people then I really felt that was my duty.

You know, so that's what I'm doing.

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