askchapo

Most of my anecdotes are just that, anecdotes. Suffice to say the military command structures, especially the navy while onboard a deployed ship, is not kind to transgender people, or depressed people, or anyone not a gung-ho patriot white supremacist.

Trigger warning for depression and suicide, and sexual assault.

::: spoiler spoiler

One anecdote, a close friend was placed on suicide watch while on deployment, which means somebody from our department has to watch them 24/7, which is on top of our normal watch and maintenance requirements. They were locked in a room inside medical with 1 sailor from our department, 24/7, and they are unmonitored by medical staff or doctors. Instead, my command send the transphobes and the people that already were known to dislike my friend. So they were trapped inside this room, with the same tormentors that led to them being confined in the first place, enduring a constant stream of hate. “You’re useless to us, you can’t stand watch, you can’t do maintenance, you might as well kill yourself, your parents would probably be relieved anyways” that type of stuff. And you know, being suicide watch, you would think sharp objects aren’t allowed, but every single one of them carried their knife in there and offered it to them. I volunteered to take the midnight watch, nobody else would, and heard this and worse first hand. Both from my friend, and later in berthing listening to those fucks gloat and joke.

And I want to clarify at the end, my friend was dishonorably discharged, and with the help of their civilian out of pocket psychiatrist who documented everything, sued the Navy for 100% disability. Close to a happy ending as you could get, not every anecdote ends well. Or ends at all. Almost all women experience sexual assault in the armed forces, the statistics are high as fuck, and it’s under reported on top of that.

Funny anecdotes would be the time our entire training command barracks was raided for suspected contraband. They seized something like 30 dildo’s, a couple toaster ovens, but no drugs.

If you can, try and stay in contact with them, I went really insular and lost that outlet and spent several years being kicked from navy psych to psych and hearing various forms of “shape up or get out.” When I met my now wife I had someone to talk to that was unconditionally supportive and they pointed out to me how being in the Navy was exactly like being in an abusive relationship, which help me reframe my issues as not really about myself, but about how I don’t fit into the system. The Navy wants you to internalize why you don’t fit in so that you’ll homogenize, and so that they don’t have to make structural changes. It’s really hard to feel like the odd one out in those places without an unconditional support system, the Navy certainly doesn’t provide that.