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The Pentagon's recent announcement that it is moving to allow transgender men and women to enlist openly- perhaps as early as next year-signaled a transformative moment for the armed forces. But to photojournalist Deni Ellis Béchard, the emphasis on the military's future conveniently neglected its past: the transgender veterans who have served in all U.S. wars, but who often felt, and continue to feel, dismissed and marginalized.
Researchers at the University of California, Los Angeles estimate that some 15,000 active-duty service members, reservists, and National Guard members-and 134,000 living veterans-identify as transgender. Yet of the transgender vets canvassed in a 2008 study from the Palm Center, a California think tank, 97 percent said they did not transition until after leaving the military. Robina Asti, shown here in her Manhattan apartment, joined the U.S. Navy in 1938 at age 17, flew air campaigns over the Pacific-and transitioned 30 years after ending her military career.
Béchard traveled to Sacramento, Boston, New Jersey, and New York City, documenting vets who represented the United States in conflicts from World War II to Vietnam to Afghanistan. "Transgender veterans are not an aberration or a recent phenomenon," Béchard says. "They are part of American history."
Copyright Foreign Policy Nov/Dec 2015