No reports of transgender troops affecting unit cohesion, Marine Corps and Navy leaders say

Senior - current estimates are there are around 15k trans service members. Not all are out and living their correct genders however. Many are stealth, and some are not being allowed to transition by their commands due to operational or other issues.

LTC (Join to see) - I suspect, and tell me if I'm wrong, that your child became an addict as a way of self-medicating because they weren't able to tell you and your wife about their situation, or weren't able to transition for some reason. The sad reality is that this happens far too often for trans folk.

I'm sorry to hear that your child needs a pacemaker. That must be quite frightening for you.

I know CW3 Mueller, and we talk frequently. She is a fierce advocate for trans military service, and was an infantry man with a CIB before her warrant and flight school.

I transitioned 15 years after I retired from the Navy, but I'm well versed in all the issues. Feel free to pm me if you'd like to discuss any of this.

LCDR Rabbah Rona Matlow thank you for your empathy. I think it was a combination of a bunch of factors that made her messed up. Our family has chronic drug and alcohol abuse on my wife side of the family. My wife's family has a lot of low self-esteem and peer pressure to do drugs. Being without her biological father caused her to be lonely. My wife accepted her as she is where she can pass yourself off as a man. She finished the ninth grade only. She used to be a good soccer player and did not have any heart problems then. She has emotional problems than even though we didn't know it. She would smile and pretend everything was okay but then she would sneak off and get high somewhere. She would smoke pot all the time when she was a teenager and it messed her up and I think some of the pot that she smoked was laced with stuff. She also took magic mushrooms as well. She overdosed on Benadryl on a dare when she was a mall rat drop out in progress. We tried to put her in rehab but her girlfriend told her if she didn't leave rehab they would break up. She is on welfare and she does go to places like I human which tried to give people like her projects and things to do to help her self-esteem. She smoke cigarettes and all her pictures that you see on Facebook or Instagram show her smoking a cigarette looking at the space worrying about the future which is actually staying up all night and sleeping all day and maybe playing guitar and getting a gig here or there. I feel that had I been her stepdad at a younger age and had she not been lied to Time and Time Again by her biological father, maybe she would have turned out normal. She knows about her heart murmur problem that requires a pacemaker but she still continues to smoke anyway. She also has a sister who is one year younger who's really messed up on drugs and alcohol as well and also on welfare. Same family peer pressure, same issues with the biological dad abandoning her at a younger age but worse because the biological dad raped her 2 years ago and he's now going to jail finally. So I had spoken to the Chief Warrant Officer 3 that you named 2 years ago. First people on rallypoint thought that I was being anti-gay because I was saying that I felt it someone like her would have a higher propensity to fail in the military because of self-esteem and mental problems. I guess nobody's alike so so people can have transgender and be focused and happy serving their country While others would have psychological problems. After the some in the lgbtq community questioned me and heard my story about my oldest stepdaughter, they understood and even said, how can you handle this? Anyways, thank you for your empathy and because of the communication and empathy from transgender people here on rallypoint, I feel that there are some that are well-grounded and can live a normal patriotic lifestyle in the alternative lifestyle without being a druggy, dropout, pothead or on welfare.

LTC (Join to see) - I am so sorry you've been through all this. We share the bond of being a step-parent to kids who dropped out and did lots of drugs, and had lots of mental problems. Ours are not queer but that's neither here nor there.

It sounds like this is a very complex family situation with a huge amount of pathology and comorbidity. At this point, I hope that you and your wife are or have been getting counseling to work through all the stressors that you no doubt have been experiencing with all this. These types of situations can easily destroy family bonds. Fortunately my wife and I made it through to the other side, but many don't.

The good news is that both of ours are doing a bit better now. I hope that yours get better in life as well.

Regarding your trans step-child, it sounds like they identify as non-binary, which is the case these days where people do not feel that they are either men or women, but some other gender, or no gender at all. As we understand gender these days, it's like points in a multi-dimensional, multi-color space. If you'd like to learn more, I invite you to visit my website, http://www.RabbahRona.us