Sam Rodriguez
Appearances
Today, Explained
Serving your country while trans
And so when we need to be concentrating on training and deployment, we're often left just like navigating this unnecessary uncertainty. And that's what's really, you know, that's what's weakening our forced cohesion and readiness. It's not the fact that I'm in uniform. Because if I wasn't meeting the standards, I would have already lost my job.
Today, Explained
Serving your country while trans
People get separated from the military for all sorts of reasons all the time. I had actually wanted to join since high school, but I also didn't want to join during Don't Ask, Don't Tell. I was in a family that wasn't very supportive of me as a young queer person, and so then thinking of
Today, Explained
Serving your country while trans
Joining an institution that wasn't going to be supportive didn't seem ideal, even though being a part of something bigger than me did. When I ultimately decided to enlist in 2015, it was because I still very much felt this desire to join the military, and I wanted to be a mental health provider. I wanted to serve the people within the military.
Today, Explained
Serving your country while trans
You know, people that join the military, they take an oath to uphold the Constitution and to protect the American people. And we also have to take care of them if we're expecting them to then fight for our rights. And so for me, it was serving my country through the service that I give back to the other service members as a mental health provider.
Today, Explained
Serving your country while trans
Being in the military, it's a multi-layered system with multi-layers of stress, especially if you're in an operational command and you have a family. So your obligation and work tempo is going to be high. And then you also have to go home and take care of your family and you need to be able to find time to take care of yourself.
Today, Explained
Serving your country while trans
I would argue that we still don't have enough mental health care providers in the military and that we need to do a better job at taking care of the whole service member. Again, if we're going to continue to ask them to do these very hard things and give up time with their family and essentially, you know, put their life on the line, then we also have to make sure that we're taking care of them.
Today, Explained
Serving your country while trans
My place in supporting the mission is supporting the people. So I identify as transmasculine, non-binary. So my gender is non-binary. I don't align with being a woman or with a man. I identify as just being a person. And the transmasculine simply just correlates to I am masculine presenting and I have... or I take testosterone.
Today, Explained
Serving your country while trans
Most outsiders, if they don't know me, they're just going to assume I'm some cis white dude, especially if you see me with my wife and kids. When I first started receiving gender-affirming care, I was working at a command that was very supportive of me, and I had colleagues that were very supportive of me. At around almost 18 months on hormones, I did... switch commands.
Today, Explained
Serving your country while trans
So I returned back to C, which in the Navy, that means that you return back to a deployable command or a command that will deploy. And it was a very small command. And I was the first person, the first trans person that any of of any of the people that worked there had ever interacted with or worked with. So there was definitely a lot of growing pains during that three and a half years.
Today, Explained
Serving your country while trans
And honestly, there were times where I felt like many of my colleagues never respected my identity. They likely still just saw me as like a butch lesbian. But after I left that command and I got to the command that I'm at now, up until recently, no one knew any differently. You know, I showed up there and have been assumed male.
Today, Explained
Serving your country while trans
And unless I feel comfortable or safe to tell someone, they don't know any different. They don't know that I'm trans.
Today, Explained
Serving your country while trans
I was selected for a clinical fellowship that I'm supposed to start this year. So that was to be a two year intensive clinical fellowship to be a clinical social worker within the Navy. So if I were to be separated based on my identity alone, then I am left trying to figure out where I'm going to work next. where my family's gonna live, where we're gonna get insurance.
Today, Explained
Serving your country while trans
I have a wife, I have two kids, I have bills to pay. So it definitely, it's already creating a lot of disorientation of what am I gonna do next? Where am I gonna go? Where are we going to live? We can't afford to live in our housing without my salary and housing stipend. So essentially we will be homeless unless we're able to find something that will support us on the one income.
Today, Explained
Serving your country while trans
I still have to find employment. And so looking for employment and where that's going to be, we know that we won't stay here in San Diego. And so then identifying a place to relocate where hopefully we have a support network there
Today, Explained
Serving your country while trans
Because I want to stay, because I want to continue to do my job. I want to finish my 20 years. I don't want to voluntarily say, oh, yeah, I'll take this ticket out of here. Because you're essentially saying that my nine years of honorable service means nothing. And I'm not going to let you have that.
Today, Explained
Serving your country while trans
That statement makes me feel... really mad, sad, everything, right? Because our nation is built on the values of freedom and service and sacrifice. My core values in the Navy are honor, courage, and commitment. And I have given nine years of honorable service with honor, courage, and commitment and integrity. I've never once received a counseling. I've never been to a disciplinary board.
Today, Explained
Serving your country while trans
I have various personal awards and awards that I received at UNITS to include the ranks and the positions that I've held. And so for you to just say that I am not adhering to all of those standards is an actual betrayal of every principle that I've sworn to defend because I do show up and I do continue to fight for the American people and also for the right to remain in service.
Today, Explained
Serving your country while trans
And so it just, I don't believe that my service is not worthy or honorable, but for that to be the narrative that they're spinning, when all of us have served honorably. Because if we weren't doing all of those things already, if we weren't meeting the standards, we would have already lost our job. Again, people leave service all the time for all sorts of reasons.
Today, Explained
Serving your country while trans
And if we weren't meeting the standards, they would have already given us our walking papers, not because we're transgender or non-binary, but because we weren't meeting the standards to uphold the missions within the military.
Today, Explained
Serving your country while trans
I am a United States Sailor. I will support and defend the Constitution of the United States of America, and I will obey the orders of those appointed over me. I represent the fighting spirit of the Navy and those who have gone before me to defend freedom and democracy around the world. I proudly serve my country's Navy Combat Team with honor, courage, and commitment.
Today, Explained
Serving your country while trans
I am committed to excellence and the fair treatment of all.
Today, Explained
Serving your country while trans
There are so many things that I would not have today if it wasn't for joining the military. I would regret not fighting to stay.
Today, Explained
Serving your country while trans
I feel a lot of anger. I feel, and not just anger because of a ban, I feel a lot of anger and disappointment at large. Just, you know, trans and non-binary people have become public enemy number one. And once you start taking away the rights of trans and non-binary people, then the rest of the chips begin to fall.
Today, Explained
Serving your country while trans
Yes. Constant changing of the policies, it definitely creates distractions and also an instability, you know, not just for me, but for our leadership too and for the rest of the military, right? Because the yo-yoing of policy can make it challenging for people to know what is the most up to date.