Transgender veteran has a message for Trump

Kristin Beck.
(Image credit: Nicholas Kamm/AFP/Getty Images)

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."

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Catherine Garcia, The Week US

Catherine Garcia is night editor for TheWeek.com. Her writing and reporting has appeared in Entertainment Weekly and EW.com, The New York Times, The Book of Jezebel, and other publications. A Southern California native, Catherine is a graduate of the University of Redlands and the Columbia University Graduate School of Journalism.