Local
Kristin Beck: I am a ‘warrior for our rights’
Transgender retired U.S. Navy SEAL to host Va. fashion show on Saturday
Former U.S. Navy SEAL Kristin Beck. (Washington Blade Photo by Damien Salas)
A transgender retired U.S. Navy SEAL hosts a charity fashion show for a Northern Virginia HIV/AIDS service organization in Falls Church on Saturday, July 20.
“HIV and AIDS is controllable, possibly curable,” Kristin Beck told the Washington Blade during an interview earlier on Friday at Ireland’s Four Provinces in downtown Falls Church alongside Hugo Delgado, executive director and co-founder of NOVASalud, Inc., the group behind the fashion show. “As long as they start being more careful and people start taking care of themselves and follow the health precautions, we could probably pretty much get rid of a lot of HIV/AIDS in the next couple of generations.”
Beck, who transitioned from a man into a woman after she retired from the Navy SEALs in 2011 following two decades with the special operations force, spoke with the Blade less than two months after she published her memoir titled “Warrior Princess: A U.S. Navy SEAL’s Journey to Coming Out Transgender.”
“I was a Navy SEAL for 20 years; I’ve been transgender for 47 years,” she said. “I’ve been transgender for my entire life.”
Beck, who was once member of the SEAL Team 6 that carried out the 2011 raid on Osama bin Laden’s compound in Pakistan during which the terrorist mastermind was killed, noted to the Blade she would have been immediately discharged under ‘Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell’ if she had come out as a trans woman while on active duty. (Gay and lesbian servicemembers have been able to serve openly since DADT’s repeal took effect in 2010, but trans soldiers remain unable to do so.)
“I was afraid,” she said. “I wanted to keep my job. I liked my job. I enjoyed being a SEAL. I was proud of that.”
In spite of the aforementioned professional risk, Beck said the majority the SEALs with whom she served remain “very supportive” of her transition.
“They’re great people that I honor to this day,” Beck said.
Warrior for ‘our civil rights’
Beck went to high school with Jonathan Falwell, one of the late-Rev. Jerry Falwell’s two sons, in Lynchburg, Va. She attended the nearby Virginia Military Institute before enlisting in the military while living in Crystal City.
Beck said she decided to write her memoir, in part, because of the disproportionately high suicide rates among trans people.
“It’s a very sad community because we have so much prejudice and so much against us,” she told the Blade as she discussed her advocacy in support of the Employment Non-Discrimination Act.
Beck said she has begun to lobby members of Congress to back bill. She noted she has also worked with Equality Florida, the American Civil Liberties Union, the Southern Poverty Law Center and other groups in support of ENDA.
“We can make it and we’re going to do good,” Beck said. “We’re equal and we’re still fighting. I’m the warrior right now for our civil rights.”
Beck further noted Virginia is among the more than 30 states without statewide trans-specific employment protections.
“This is the land of life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness,” she said. “I don’t have liberty myself. I am not equal right now and that makes me a little bit angry. It should make all of us angry.”
Beck also discussed the need to curb anti-trans violence.
She told the Blade she continues to worry about someone whom she does not know attacking her because of her gender identity and expression.
“I’m in constant danger for people who are uninformed,” Beck said. “So if I can inform a few of those people to say hey look, I don’t want you to love me, I don’t want you like me… I don’t care, but I don’t want you to run over to me and punch me in the head because you see me wearing a dress.”
Beck, who lives outside Tampa, Fla., has two teenage sons with her ex-wife who now resides in Minnesota. She said they are “fairly open” to her new gender identity and expression.
“It makes me proud of them that they can look beyond a lot of things and they are accepting of something,” Beck said.
Beck to ‘bring an awareness’ of area trans residents
Delgado told the Blade his organization’s fashion show – and Beck’s participation in it – is part of his group’s ongoing commitment to provide HIV/AIDS education and testing and linking those who live with the virus in Northern Virginia to care.
“There’s a big need, especially for the LGBT community,” he said. “In this project we try to break the stigma, discrimination and prejudice. Plus we want to present to the community this [the trans community] is a beautiful community that we need to take care of.”
Trans Sisters Informing Sisters on Topics about AIDS (TSISTA,) a NOVASalud program, will also take part in the fashion show.
“Having Kristin join forces with NOVASalud, Inc., and TSISTA will bring an awareness to the Northern Virginia community about our beautiful transgender community,” Gaby García, a NOVASalud health educator for TSISTA, said.
Cameroon
Gay Cameroonian immigrant will be freed from ICE detention — for now
Ludovic Mbock’s homeland criminalizes homosexuality
By ANTONIO PLANAS | An immigration judge on Friday issued a $4,000 bond for a Cameroonian immigrant and regional gaming champion held in federal immigration detention for the past three weeks.
The ruling will allow Ludovic Mbock, of Oxon Hill, to return to Maryland from a Georgia facility this weekend, his family and attorney said.
“Realistically, by tomorrow. Hopefully, by today,” said Mbock’s attorney, Edward Neufville. “We are one step closer to getting Ludovic justice.”
The rest of this article can be found on the Baltimore Banner’s website.
District of Columbia
Bowser appoints first nonbinary person to Cabinet-level position
Peter Stephan named Office of Disability Rights interim director
D.C. Mayor Muriel Bower has named longtime disability rights advocate Peter L. Stephan, who identifies as nonbinary, as interim director of the D.C. Office of Disability Rights.
The local transgender and nonbinary advocacy group Our Trans Capital and the LGBTQ group Capital Stonewall Democrats issued a joint statement calling Stephan’s appointment an historic development as the first-ever appointment of a nonbinary person to a Cabinet-level D.C. government position.
“This milestone appointment recognizes Stephan’s extensive expertise in disability rights advocacy and marks a historic advancement for transgender and nonbinary representation in District government leadership,” the statement says.
The statement notes that Stephan, an attorney, held the position of general counsel at the Office of Disability Rights immediately prior to the mayor’s decision to name him interim director.
The mayor’s office didn’t immediately respond to a question from the Washington Blade asking if Bowser plans to name Stephan as the permanent director of the Office of Disability Rights. John Fanning, a spokesperson for D.C. Council member Anita Bonds (D-At-Large), said the office’s director position requires confirmation by the Council.
Stephan couldn’t immediately be reached for comment.
“At a time when trans and nonbinary people ae under attack across the country, D.C. continues to lead by example,” said Stevie McCarty, president of Capital Stonewall Democrats. “This appointment reflects what we have always believed that our community is always strongest when every voice is represented in government,” he said.
“This is a historic step forward,” said Vida Rengel, founder of Our Trans Capital. “Interim Director Stephan’s career and accomplishments are a shining example of the positive impact that trans and nonbinary public servants can have on our communities,” according to Rangel.
District of Columbia
Capital Stonewall Democrats set to celebrate 50th anniversary
Mayor Bowser expected to attend March 20 event
D.C. Mayor Muriel Bowser, members of the D.C. Council, and local and national Democratic Party officials are expected to join more than 150 LGBTQ advocates and supporters on March 20 for the 50th anniversary celebration of the city’s Capital Stonewall Democrats.
A statement released by the organization says the event is scheduled to be held at the Pepco Edison Place Gallery building at 702 8th St., N.W. in D.C.
“The evening will honor the people who built Capital Stonewall Democrats across five decades – activists who fought for rights when the odds were against them, public servants who opened doors and refused to let them close, and a new generation of leaders ready to carry the work forward,” the statement says.
Founded in 1976 as the Gertrude Stein Democratic Club, the organization’s members voted in 2021 to change its name to the Capital Stonewall Democrats.
Among those planning to attend the anniversary event is longtime D.C. gay Democratic activist Paul Kuntzler, 84, who is one of the two co-founders of the then-Gertrude Stein Democratic Club. Kuntzler told the Washington Blade that he and co-founder Richard Maulsby were joined by about a dozen others in the living room of his Southwest D.C. home at the group’s founding meeting in January 1976.
He said that among the reasons for forming a local LGBTQ Democratic group at the time was to arrange for a then “gay” presence at the 1976 Democratic National Convention, at which Jimmy Carter won the Democratic nomination for U.S. president and later won election as president.
Maulsby, who served as the Stein Club president for its first three years and who now lives in Sarasota, Fla., said he would not be attending the March 20 anniversary event, but he fully supports the organization’s continuing work as an LGBTQ organization associated with the Democratic Party.
Steven McCarty, Capital Stonewall Democrats’ current president, said in the statement that the anniversary celebration will highlight the organization’s work since the time of its founding.
“Capital Stonewall Democrats has been fighting for LGBTQ+ political power in this city for 50 years, electing people, training organizers, holding this community together through some really hard moments,” he said. “And right now, with everything going on, that work has never mattered more. This gala is the first moment of our next chapter, and I want the community to be a part of it.”
The statement says among the special guests attending the event will be Democratic National Committee Vice Chair Malcolm Kenyatta, who became the first openly gay LGBTQ person of color to win election to the Pennsylvania General Assembly in 2018.
Other guests of honor, according to the statement, include Mayor Bowser; D.C. Council member Zachary Parker (D-Ward 5, the Council’s only gay member; D.C. Council member Anita Bonds (D-At-Large); Earl Fowlkes, founder of the International Federation of Black Prides; Vita Rangel, a transgender woman who serves as Deputy Director of the D.C. Mayor’s Office of Talent and Appointments; Heidi Ellis, director of the D.C. LGBTQ Budget Coalition; Rayceen Pendarvis, longtime D.C. LGBTQ civic activist; and Phillip Pannell, longtime D.C. LGBTQ Democratic activist and Ward 8 civic activist.
Information about ticket availability for the Capital Stonewall Democrats anniversary gala can be accessed here: capitalstonewalldemocrats.com/50th
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PHOTOS: ‘Defrosted’
