‘I Lived in Hell for the Past 10 Years’: Navy SEAL Veteran Detransitions After Decade Living as a Woman

‘I Lived in Hell for the Past 10 Years’: Navy SEAL Veteran Detransitions After Decade Living as a Woman
Left: Sundry Photography/Shutterstock; Right: Sandi Foraci photography/CC BY 3.0
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Navy SEAL combat veteran Chris Beck, 56, made headlines in 2013 when he announced—after serving 20 years in the military—that he was a woman in a man’s body. He had hormone therapy and expensive gender reassignment surgery and went by “Kristin” for years before having a major realization: he'd been had.

Beck now claims that a VA psychologist, in a one-hour therapy session, convinced him he was transgender by luring him into a lucrative book deal. He says his past identity is still being used for indoctrination and warns children and parents of “trans-washing”—the promotion of “trans identities” on still-impressionable minds, coercing kids into making permanent, life-changing decisions against their best interests.

“I was naïve, I was in a really bad way, I was taken advantage of,” Beck told Robby Starbuck in an interview in early December. “I got used, badly, by a lot of people who had knowledge way beyond me. They knew what they were doing. I didn’t.”

‘I Destroyed Everything’

Two months prior to that interview, Beck announced to the world that he was “detransitioning” after living ten years as a woman. He posted on Facebook:
I will sound crazy to most of you. That’s ok. The path was clearly shown to me BECAUSE I have lived in hell for the past 10 years. As I read the Bible and other ancient texts I am continually aligned. I have no fear, no ego, no agenda, and only one wish: those with ears must listen, those with eyes must see, those with a voice must speak. I have a voice. I must speak and bear witness to what I saw.

Beck was doing alright before coming out as trans: earning $200,000 a year, having friends, a job, and a life he loved. “I look back and I see how I destroyed everything in my life that was holy, the temple of God, our bodies, what we have here,” he said. “I wish I’d had someone that would have helped me.”

After 13 military deployments, Beck suffered symptoms of trauma including depression, anxiety, and adjustment disorder. He was sent to a VA psychologist and confessed to feeling comforted by wearing women’s clothes. The psychologist made a shock diagnosis: Beck was transgender.

The former SEAL got on hormones, subsidized by the VA, and underwent gender reassignment surgery at his own cost—for which he is still out of pocket. But it wasn’t long before he began experiencing adverse effects from the hormone treatment.

“Hormones are system-wide … I had so many problems in my body when I started taking those,” he said. “I was like, ‘This is terrible,’ so I stopped. He added that he’s ”sorry“ it came out of the American people’s tax dollars and that he is ”not a victim” but takes responsibility for his actions.

“I'll think about this the rest of my life, and beat myself up the rest of my life,” he said. “I was repeating those psychologists, basically parroting their words, and it wasn’t me.”

Gender reassignment is a multi-billion-dollar industry with an agenda. Beck is now engaged, and his fiancée, Courtney, with an academic background in biology, anthropology, and gender studies, knows this agenda all too well.

“Transgender ideology is cultish, and it’s not science-based at all,” she told Starbuck, adding that there is no control group, something which is required in the scientific method. “There can’t be a woman who says, ‘I’m happy to be a woman,’ and there can’t be a man who says, ‘I’m happy to be a man.’ In order to enter this ideology, you have to completely lose yourself.”

She noted a hypocrisy: “If you’re teaching in women and gender studies that gender is fluid, why would you then be advocating for permanent changes to someone’s gender?”

The Wellbeing of Our Children

The trans ideology is not normalized—yet. But it is being popularized through the media with massive corporate support, Beck said.

The discussion is neither political nor religious, he adds. It’s a health discussion, one of physical and mental health, involving the well-being of our children. Yet the so-called treatment seems to serve the opposite.

“The hormones they’re using are the same hormones they used to use for medical castration, chemical castration for pedophiles,” the former SEAL said. “Now they’re giving this to healthy 13-year-olds. Does this seem right?”

The “feelings-based” approach to diagnosis is also problematic, as it’s “not evidence-based” yet leads young patients to undergo hormone treatment and gender reassignment.

“If this does turn out to be a human condition that we all could face, and the numbers are one percent of the population, then so be it,” he told Starbuck. “But I want to see it in evidence, and then I’ll support that one percent.”

Beck, who retired from military service as a decorated chief petty officer in 2011, now says he doesn’t condone those serving to undergo gender transition, as such invasive treatments and surgeries would compromise the readiness of the armed forces.

‘Slow This Train Down’

Beck, who has studied graduate-level counseling, thinks anyone over the age of 25—when the human brain reaches full maturity—should be free to make their own decisions. But those under that age who are told they are transgender are being “brainwashed, coerced, manipulated.”

“Everyone has things that happen to them. It’s normal. That’s life,” he said. “What happened to me should not be an excuse for a psychologist to push their agenda.

“For me, with a child right now, I don’t trust psychologists or psychiatrists until they get to the bottom of this, when we find out the DSM [diagnostic and statistical manual for diagnosing mental disorders] is being used as a tool to push a narrative.”

If the kid turns out to be “tomboy,” she should not face bullying from the medical community and have a diagnosis pushed on her, Beck added.

The former officer’s inward battle of healing has turned outward since his decision to detransition. On Dec. 12, in a Facebook post, he stated his new mission:

“Yes. Lots changed, but I’m still me. Still trying to do good and help. ... Someone has to try to slow this train down. No one else stood up. I stood up against madness to save innocent children.”

A recent photo of Chris Beck in Navy uniform. (Sandi Foraci photography/CC BY 3.0)
A recent photo of Chris Beck in Navy uniform. Sandi Foraci photography/CC BY 3.0
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