Every November 11th, the US celebrates Veterans Day, a day to honor all of those who served in our military, all of those who are currently serving and especially all of those who died serving our country. This is a special year for different reasons. For the first time in history, gay, lesbian and bisexual veterans and service members can celebrate Veterans Day openly because of the end of Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell. Sadly, trans service members still cannot celebrate openly.

Another reason is the date, 11/11/11. Many people do not know the significance on why Veterans Day is celebrated on November 11, or why Veterans Day parades start on the eleventh minute of the eleventh hour of that day. It all came about ninety-three years ago in France.

On November 11, 1918, the armistice to end World War I went into affect, on the eleventh hour of that day. The 11th minute of the 11th hour was never officially recognized, but many Americans use that to extend the “eleventh” number pattern. On November of 1919, President Woodrow Wilson proclaimed November 11th as the day to commemorate Armistice Day.

On May 3, 1938, Congress declared Armistice Day a legal holiday for federal workers. On June 1, 1954, we changed the name to Veterans Day, after America had just finished WWII and the Korean War. They changed the name in order to commemorate all veterans who served this country in all wars. On June 28, 1968, Veterans Day was made a floating holiday to give federal workers a three-day weekend, but that didn’t last long. Because the day was considered one of historical and patriotic significance, on September 20, 1975, the holiday was put back on November 11 of each year.

This year, not only will Veterans Day officially start on the eleventh minute of the eleventh hour, of the eleventh day of the eleventh month, but this will be the first time ever it will also be on the eleventh year. There are no American survivors of WWI to witness this special day. The last American WWI veteran was Frank Buckles, who died February 27, 2011. On 11/11/11 at 11:11, he will be one of those we will remember and honor. Thank you for your service, Frank.

Thank you for the service of all of those who have worn the uniform of our nation. Amongst them are my grandfather, all of my uncles and one of my aunts. My father served in three wars and in three branches of the military. I served eight years in the Navy, my brother retired after 20 years in the Army and his son is currently in the Air Force. I want to especially thank my oldest son, who did fours years in the Marines and two tours in Iraq. Veterans Day means a lot to our family.

This was a fun video to make for a favorite piece of music. There are over 500 NASA images gone into making this and hours of editing. The music is “Chamber of Horror” by Rick Wakeman.

Several people have sent in their information and pictures, but not all appear in this video. We will be showing the rest of them in Part 3. If you are a trans veteran and you still wish to send in your information to be included in Part 3, there is plenty of time. Leave a message on the YouTube video page or send it to Monica Helms at tava1@earthlink.net.

I took video of the Atlanta National Organization for Marriage rally, August 7, 2010, but because of problems uploading to YouTube, and some personal issues.  This is the first I can share them with people.  There are five videos, and I still have to edit the video I took of the LGBT rally at Woodruff Park, before the NOM rally.

This first one is called, “Atlanta LGBT Community at NOM Rally, August 7, 2010.” On This video, we see the LGBT come together to face the National Organization for Marriage at the Georgia State Capital Building and show their faces to be visible. NOM has a tiny crowd compared to the LGBT Community, as NOM tries to drum up support for their archaic attitudes toward love, marriage and commitment.

With the divorce rate at 50%, maybe straight people should worry about fixing their own marriages instead making a mockery of it. With their bad track record, they shouldn’t be telling others how to run their lives.

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Number 2 is “The Atlanta Speech of Brian Brown, from the National Organization for Marriage.”  Listen to Brian Brown at the Atlanta rally, August 7, 2010. His anger toward Judge Walker on the Prop 8 case and gay people in general shows that he is real scared that what he has been fighting against may just win. It is so interesting to watch people who are on the wrong side of history losing grip on their tedious power structure. I’m glad we caught it on video.

Number 3 is “Interview with Brian Brown, from the National Organization for Marriage.” On this video, through Paul Schappaugh, the Atlanta LGBT community asks question of Brian Brown, the ED for NOM. Judge for yourself on accuracy, or lack thereof, of his answers. With the divorce rate at 50%, maybe he should be helping straight people fix their own marriages instead trying to tell same-sex couples they can’t get married.

We found out later that he said that Dr. Alveda King was “attacked and smeared.” This is an out-and-out lie. Apparently, the importance of telling the truth is not part of his Bible.

Number 4 is “The Atlanta Speech of Tanya Ditty, the Georgia Director for the Concern Women for America.” Listen to the speech by Tanya Ditty, the Georgia Director for the Concern Women for America, given at the Atlanta NOM rally, August 7, 2010. She is big on quoting stats about children needing to grow up with a mother and father, but failed to tell people that these statistics came from studies having to do with single parents and nothing to do with same-sex couples.

Here’s another person who misuses facts, makes up facts out of thin air and refuses to see the true facts that are out there.

And, Number 5 is “An Interview with Tanya Ditty, the Georgia Director for the Concern Women for America.” This is interesting in how she dodges questions on various subjects, to hide the fact she really doesn’t know anything. She keeps harping on “traditional marriages.”

I wonder how far back she wants to go with this “traditional marriage” thing? In the time of Christ, women were property, for the express purpose of producing male heirs for men. Only male children from a woman he has a marriage contract with can legally be his heirs. That lasted until the late 19th Century.

So, does she want to go back to where women are nothing more the property of men? I think it’s time for the Concern Women for America to be concern about more important things.

The VA has a new directive on the treatment of Transgender Veterans, BUT they won’t release it. This is becoming a theme with the Obama Administration. Tell LGBT people that their issues are important then do nothing to make them a reality. Transgender veterans have decided not to be quiet about this issue any longer.

First, a little history. In January of 2003, the Transgender American Veterans Association was formed with the primary mission to work with the Department of Veteran Affairs to have their medical facilities treat transgender people with dignity and respect.

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In 2008, TAVA created a survey where 827 transgender veterans gave us information on all kinds of issues, especially their treatment at the VA. One third of those who took the survey had used a VA medical facility at one time of another. More than twenty percent of them had been mistreated by staff members, other patients, nurses and even doctors. The survey ended on May 1, 2008, and the raw data became public record. The Palm Center put out the White Papers in August.

TAVA was told by a VA insider that the raw data from the survey had reached the Veterans Health Administration, the medical department of the VA, and in June of 2008, they began drafting a directive to rectify the problem. In March of 2009 (after the Obama Administration took over,) the VHA sent a draft of their proposed directive to a few VA medical facilities for review by their transgender veterans. They didn’t contact TAVA or NCTE on this. The draft had misinformation, inaccuracies, incorrect descriptions and disrespectful definitions. It looked bad.

TAVA spent the next month communicating with some of the new people in the VA, some of whom had previous experience with transgender people and their medical issues. They agreed that the problem of mistreatment of transgender veterans needed to be fixed. TAVA felt hopeful that these new people now leading the VA would help us.

In May of 2009, the VHA sent a draft of their proposed directive, called “Providing Healthcare for Transgender and Intersex Veterans,” to NCTE to have them be the point organization in assuring the directive’s language looked correct in every way. With the help of trans lawyers and TAVA, NCTE put together a wonderful directive that would greatly improve how transgender veterans will be treated. The VA received our corrected version in July of 2009.

What the directive does cover is all the things that are available to other veterans, such as psychotherapy for PTSD, mammograms, prostate exams, pap smears and other important medical services, which had been denied to many transgender veterans in the past. This directive does indeed ensure that transgender veterans will be treated with dignity and respect.

I will not show the entire directive, because it may not be the final version. It has three pages total, with one page of definitions, a half page of references and the rest covering what the VA can and cannot do for transgender veterans. The language we will show you is from the draft of the directive we sent to the VHA and may have some tweaking before they release it. Sounds like we stepped into the ENDA territory.

Here are some of the important parts as they appeared in the revised draft:

– This directive does not apply to patients who receive benefits under the Civilian Health and Medical Program of the Department of Veterans Affairs (CHAMPVA).
– A diagnosis of Gender Identity Disorder (GID) is not a pre-condition for receiving care consistent with the Veteran’s self-identified gender.
– All staff, including medical and administrative staff, are required to treat as confidential any information about a patient’s transgender status or any treatment related to a patient’s gender transition, unless the patient has given permission to share this information.
– Diversity awareness training, (which educates staff on providing unbiased, respectful care to ALL Veterans) is available to supervisors and employees.

The following has to be said in bold capital letters for the good of those who will try to spread lies about this new directive. “THE DIRECTIVE SAYS THAT THE VA WILL NOT, DOES NOT AND CANNOT COVER SEX REASSIGNMENT/GENDER RECONSTRUCTION SURGERY.” That particular restriction is written into the Public Law that the VA has to follow in order to provide health care for veterans. It cannot be overridden by a simple directive change. However, it might be affected by other recent federal rulings. We’ll have to see.

As I stated, the VHA received our changes in July. They told us we would see it come out in August . . . then October . . . then February . . . and here it is May, a year from when we started making the changes, and still no directive.

To those LGBT people fighting for the repeal of DADT and the passage of ENDA, does this sound familiar? The difference is that this is not something Congress has to vote on. It’s a directive that can be implemented in a heartbeat and not a law that takes time to pass the House and the Senate. What is with the Obama Administration’s VHA when they hold back a simple directive that will instantly help part of the veteran community? I’ll let the conspiracy theorists play with that one. All we ask is to stop sitting on this and put it out to the VA medical facilities. It that so hard?

Since July of last year, when the VA had this directive in their hands, several transgender veterans have contacted TAVA saying that they had been treated badly at the VA, so we know that it could have prevented this if it had been introduced. And, even if these issues happen after implementation of the directive, the veterans would finally have it in hand to give them more clout when talking to the VA Patient Advocate. What is holding up the process? Who in the Administration is preventing this from coming out?

TAVA hasn’t been sitting idle since July. We have faxed a letter to the current DVA Secretary, retired Gen. Eric K. Shinseki and his secretary assured us he read it. Nothing happened. In early March, I personally presented the problem to the top administrator for Rep Joe Sestak, a retired Admiral and a champion for veterans’ rights, and Rep Sestak read the information. Sestak then sent me a letter saying he was “investigating and will respond soon.” Since then, he entered the final stages of a Senate race to replace Senator Arlen Specter and won. We hope to hear from him soon.

Other people have spoken to Representatives and Senators on our behalf, including NCTE, but still nothing happens. We wait for people to do the right thing, while transgender veterans have their basic health care denied. This issue will probably not cause a blip on the LGBT radar, and no one will be handcuffing themselves to the front doors of the DVA building. The transgender veterans will have to go it alone on this, as they have all along. The directive will eventually come out. We just hope it’ll be sooner than later.

This is a documentary of those individuals who crossed gender lines to serve their country, from the Revolutionary War to the Spanish American War. The video has stories of interesting people, like Deborah Sampson, Albert Cashier and Cathy Williams. It didn’t turn out too bad for what I had to work with.

I wanted to do a tribute to all of those transgender and transgender -like people who served this country proudly. It was amazing what I found when researching the information for this video. I hope you like it.