I will start this off with an apology; it's a long message but it's complicated and since most people don't have a military background I have to do some explaining or it won't make much sense. Sorry.
I joined the army to make a man of myself and since that was the specific purpose I had in mind simply joining the army and being a cook or a clerk wasn't enough. I went for the most macho thing I could and became an armoured reconnaissance soldier and then when that didn't fix my problem I started trying to get into combat. I have done three tours, my last on in Kandahar provence Afghanistan was the most life changing. In armoured recce you drive around in a armoured car looking for the Taliban, this involves being bait more or less. You only know that you have found the Taliban because someone starts shooting at you, or you hit an IED (a mine or booby trap in layman's terms). Another favorite thing to do is to sit somewhere in the open where everyone can see you and wait to get attacked. So it's a dangerous job obviously and since you are living cheek to jowl with three other people in a crew you get pretty tight with each other. This is where the whole mystique of the comrades in arms, the band of brothers, comes from.
After I got back from my last tour to Afghanistan I couldn't deal with my GID anymore, I lasted another year before I broke down and sought help. I am sure a lot of you know that in the Canadian Army (which I am a member of) you can be trans and still be retained by the forces, in fact they cover all the meds, psych and even the srs and why not? After all a '->-bleeped-<-' will stop a bullet just as well as a 'normal' person right?
So in the last year I've been seeing a psychiatrist and a social worker and begun hormones and then went on leave at Christmas with the intention that I'd be posted to a nearby city (my base is in the sticks) in April and I'd start RLT then an return to work at a new job in the city. The idea being that I do my RLT in a more open minded enviroment and then after I've recovered from my operation I'd return to my old unit and live happily ever after or go overseas again and get shot or whatever the future holds. The whole process from posting out to my posting back is supposed to be two years. This is the way it's been done for all the people who have gone before me and the main point is that I don't have to transition in front of my peers. Simple right? Not exactly.
Most people think Catch 22 is a farce but actually it's a documentary. April rolled around and my posting didn't, so I started my RLT on leave but still living on base in the married quarters. All the jokes started over the internet, no one had the guts to say anything to my face but they made sure I saw their clever pictures and funny rhymes and things. Meanwhile I tried to sort out the posting problem but that went nowhere and the end of my leave rolled around and I was facing going back to work at my unit en femme. I could have gotten out of it. I could have gone to the doctor and got sick leave to cover me until the posting was eventually sorted out but I decided not to. I thought if I went back to work I could bug the hell out of the command and get this posting sorted out much faster and I thought; 'I have to face them sometime and if I run away from this just because it's hard then every time things look like they are going to be hard then I'm going to run and hide and I can't live like that'.
So monday was my first day back. I was so scared I didn't sleep the night before. In the morning I could barely get my earrings in and I had to re-do my eyeliner countless times (not to mention how many times I nearly took my eye out with the mascara) but I finally got it done and I looked okay. I had decided to make it as obvious as I could given that I'd be wearing baggy fatigues that I was in the female role so thats why I put on makeup, not to mention that all the other women do the exact same thing and i wanted to fit in as much as I could. So I went in and reported and was given a job in the regimental archives, which was perfect! The archives is an office type job, it's basically the unit museum, and I was good friends with the guy who ran it and knew he was an intelligent and open minded guy. The archives is also a bit out of the way so I would still see people but in ones and twos which is much easier to handle than walking into a hangar floor and facing a squadron of 85 people all at once.
My job in archives lasted two hours and then I was called by my Sergeant and told that I was going to D Squadron. D Squadron is just starting work up training to go over seas of course and it's most definitely NOT an office job, it's back to armoured cars and the macho world of recce. I begged him, literally begged him, not to send me down to the squadron but no one cared and I was told to 'suck it up' and get down there. Instead I went to the doctor and got that sick leave. So I am back on leave until my posting comes though.
I had been nervous about going back to work but I consolled myself with 'it won't be as bad as you think when you actually get there' but as it turned out it was worse. All the people who transitioned before me either were not combat arms soldiers or they were in a post that was not a combat arms post, I am the first to transition in the combat arms in a combat arms base. I don't know how it was for them but I know for me it's been terrible. You remember that stuff at the begining of this post about the mystique of the comrades in arms, the band of brothers?
Yeah that's a frigging fairy tale.
I risked my life, literally, for these guys. I lived with them, fought beside them and bled with them and when I needed them they mocked and belittled me and threatened to beat me behind my back. When I met them face to face they wouldn't look at me, they wouldn't talk to me and when I said 'hi' to them they walked right past me like I wasn't there. Now that I'm on leave when ever I run into someone from work at the Canex (our version of the PX) or in town I'm terrified. This is your band of brothers.
