Corrine Bennet
Identifies as a woman (she/ her pronouns)
Lynne: I want to re-revisit some of the things we talked about yesterday, because I think they were really important.
Corinne: We were talking about my childhood, right? And my feelings on those things? We were talking about my family structure, and how the transition has been... This is a vain question. Do I sound good enough to have my voice featured?
Lynne: You sound like a 15-year-old girl.
Corinne: I am going through puberty, too.
Lynne: Exactly. You're smack dab in the middle of it.
Corinne: So perfect. Yeah. I can start wherever if you want me to, if you want to start talking.
Lynne: I really enjoyed hearing what you were saying about the dysphoria, your philosophy and your point of view. You're not waking up as Jazz Jennings.
Corinne: This isn't something that's necessarily original to me. I'm no philosopher, but there are a lot of different schools of thought within the trans community about whether or not you need dysphoria to be trans, whether or not people who don't experience dysphoria transition. I don't hold to those beliefs. I specifically have certain younger memories of things that indicate to me now, that I was going through some sort of gender struggle at the time... Not everyone experiences that. It's extremely important to get that up front, to let people know that if you're not the classic fit of someone who wanted to wear their mom or dad's clothes when they were eight. That doesn't necessarily mean that your transition isn't valid. I think there's a lot of pressure on trans people, specifically trans women, to have this horrible, traumatic childhood experience that told them at a young age they were trans, and had to hide it. That doesn't happen for everybody. I think it's important to destroy that narrative because it's expected of us by cis-people, by people who don't understand. There's so much turmoil that comes with transition, to come to the point where you're willing to transition. One of the hardest things to overcome for people in my situation is doubt. I am almost a year into my hormone therapy, into my medical transition, and there are still, much less often now, moments where I'm like, "Maybe I'm not trans. Maybe I'm not a woman. Am I making a mistake?" This is a huge life altering thing, you know what I mean? We already have so much doubt to deal with and I think it's important that people understand that not everybody has those childhood linkages that means they're transgender... I think that expectation is unfair.
Dealing with Dysphoria
Corinne: I do have some memories of my young childhood, sometime between 8 and 9 years old, wearing my mother and my sister's clothes... These memories are not positive for me. They're associated with a lot of guilt and self-hate and shame. My folks are very religious. Not that there's anything wrong with religious people, but they are the Pentecostal extremist type of religious, where if it's not biblically literal, then it's sinful and wrong. I was raised to believe that gay people were possessed by demons and that's why they were how they were. It was this concept of actual literal possession by demons. It wasn't just that it was sinful. It wasn't just that it was wrong. They were possessed by Satan. The guilt that I felt just from those incidents was definitely formative for me. It informed my behavior and development in my puberty years. I knew from a young age that I was attracted to both men and women, and I knew from a young age that I was attracted to the concept of being more feminine than masculine, which again triggered a lot of guilt and doubt and self-hate. And I think that informs my understanding of who I am now... Everyone's journey is equally valid... Because the thing that gets missed with all of this is that it's about you. It's about your personal understanding of who you are. It's a totally normal thing for a cis-gender person to go through a midlife crisis and try to figure out who they are. We joke about it. “Oh, Johnny is going through an identity crisis because he just bought a new Corvette. Fifty-five and he's trying to lose weight.” It's a normal thing. We don't bat an eye... But when someone tries to find themselves within a non-standard method like this, like someone who's trans, all of a sudden... it is odd...
Changes in Hormones, Changes in Self-Perception
Corinne: I'm far more comfortable now looking at what I used to look like and hearing what I used to sound like, because I think there's a lot of separation between then and now. Admittedly, I am still very early in my transition process. But a year is much different than 4 months or 2 months. Early on in this in this conversation, you joked about me being like a teenager and how there are a lot of similarities. Even within the last year, I have matured significantly when it comes to my interactions with my spouse and my children, my interactions with people who are intentionally cruel. Here's a good example of this: I am a motorcycle enthusiast. I love motorcycles. And I used to ride a Harley Davidson. I sold my bike this past summer because I was early in my transition. Any idea of anything that could possibly even be considered typically masculine, I was just like, “No, I don't want it. I hate it, no.” And now I'm a kind of like, “Fuck, I miss my bike.” Obviously, I'm mature enough to understand that there's no such thing as a boy bike or a girl bike. I teach those lessons to my daughters every day. I was trying so hard to make it happen... that I sold my bike. I love my bike... and I'll get another one. It's not the biggest deal. I guess I'm saying that the maturity there has changed. Not everybody's journey is the same.
"Any idea of anything that could possibly be considered typically masculine, I was just like, No, I don't want it. I hate it, no..."
For someone who is just now starting hormone therapy, they have to assume that's just the beginning of their journey. You get that excitement of your first injection and then you realize that you're probably not going to see changes until six months from now. You'll always see changes in yourself first. It is like with weight loss, you'll see the five pounds that you lost, but no one else will see it. It's only when you lose 20 pounds when people notice. The first couple of months for me during my transition, I definitely noticed really insignificant breast growth, nipple enlargement, loss of sexual function, or at least a decrease in libido. My face felt softer, my skin felt softer. I think noticeable changes didn’t happened until October. Even then, I think I looked very much the same, aside from the fact I was losing muscle mass like crazy and gaining a little weight in the face.
Lynne: When did any real actual changes start?
Corinne: So, I left my house as soon as I was an adult and was able to join the Marine Corps. I came home from Afghanistan in January of 2012 and Don't Ask, Don't Tell had been repealed. And there were people, really close friends, that came out at the time. And I remember thinking, “Wow, that's got to be so empowering.” I had a great deal of confusion about it. It was very clearly understood that there was a ticking time bomb, and the Department of Defense was not going to stick up for us. We knew that policy (Transgender ban from the military) was coming down and I actually barely made it. I got my official order to transition in the military before that Jackass banned it. I needed an official diagnosis of gender dysphoria from a military medical provider. I got my diagnosis in January of 2018, one month before the ban went into effect. It was terrifying because it's not so simple. You can't just walk into your provider's office and say, “Hi, I'd like a diagnosis in order to do things correctly.” According to the DSM five, in order to get a diagnosis of gender dysphoria, you have to be displaying consistent symptoms for six months. So, I am actually very lucky that I started going to therapy in Japan and started that counseling process out there, because otherwise I wouldn't have been exempt and I would not have been able to transition... Once your mental health provider gives you that diagnosis, your chain of command is immediately notified. So, the day that I got that diagnosis from my provider, this 30-year colonel in charge of my regiment was notified. And the next day I had to sit down with him and talk to him about it.
Lynne: How did he respond?
Corinne: Extremely positively. I was shocked. I was absolutely shocked by how positive the reception was for me. His name was Mike Stessel. He was very much your typical Marine Colonel. I had seen this man pick up a friend of mine by his jacket and shake him because we were on a live fire range and my friend had done something stupid. He is just not the type of person that you would want to mess with. My mental health provider promised me that he would take it well, but I was still terrified. So, we sat down, and he brought in the rest of the chain of command that had need to know. It was like the operations officer, the executive officer, him, the sergeant major and then my mental health provider.
Lynne: Did anyone respond negatively?
Corinne: Mostly cowards... I say that because it's mostly people hiding behind the Internet comment section that have something to say. And honestly, those have been pretty rare. I did have one issue with a staff non-commissioned officer within my regiment. When I had started my transition and I finally got permission to grow my hair out, I had to grow my hair out for a couple of weeks. It was pretty obvious that I hadn't just missed my haircut. And I had an individual there who was one rank above me confront me about it. “So hey, go get your haircut. You look unprofessional.” And I was like, “Hey, my name is this. This is what I'm going through. If you have any questions, please contact my immediate supervisor, because that's the person that you need to talk to... And Have a nice day.” I handled the interaction very respectfully, which is a big thing in the military. That individual took it upon himself to make a big stink and run all over the place, talking to all the other staff and CEOs and officers about what was going on, and how he didn't think it was right that I was able to do this, because he was uninformed. He thought that the ban was a blanket thing as opposed to having exceptions. The long story short is it didn't matter because I ended up fixing the issue with the legal department. But that was really the only face-to-face negative interaction I had. I didn't expect that much support from them. As far as the ban goes, well... I went to work for this country, I have given ten years of my life to this country. I deployed four times in support of the mission of the U.S. military. I have missed birthdays. I've missed wedding anniversaries. I've missed the birth of my first child for this country. And to have the dishonor of having people like me banned from the military by tweet by someone who's sick, typically unqualified for their position in the first place, and to have no one do anything about it, that was a huge disappointment for me.
Family Matters
Corinne: All of Shannon's [my wife's] side of the family have immediately and continuously been supportive... My own family was kind of a crapshoot. My older brother had my back from the beginning... but he didn't understand. But, he was accepting of me no matter what. My folks have since come around and are using my correct name and pronouns, which despite their religious beliefs, that's a plus. There were definitely some negative surprises. There are people that I had no idea would not be accepting of it. I lost two of my best friends who I had known for the last decade, one of which was in my wedding. That was shocking... it was like getting stabbed.
What you're doing is bringing visibility to gender nonconforming people... That's going to make all the difference. You'll talk to certain individuals or hear from certain individuals that say like, oh, this is a trend. These are all these snowflakes coming out of their safe spaces and expecting to not be misgendered with their ridiculous blah, blah, blah, blah... It's a bunch of crap. Trans people have always existed in the same sense as gay people have always existed. There’s just a ton more visibility now because the law has finally caught up and is protecting us. Now that we're protected, we're able to come out and say, hey, this is neat. Like it or not, since Obama made it legal for gay people to get married. In the decade since that’s happened, normalization of gay relationships has been dramatic. When you see it, it's not a problem anymore. Most people don't even blink an eye at it. That's what's going to happen with Trans people, as long as we continue to show the world we exist.
Not Just a Trans Woman
Corinne: I'm queer. That was used as a slur for so long. But we're taking it back because it's more accurate. Because is it more effective to say that than to say LGBTQ. We have to take control of our narrative and our dialogue... and by being able to use effective terminology that includes everybody without turning off the cis community, by making it seem like we're just coming up with a bunch of shit. That's important, because at the end of the day, I don't want to be seen as Corinne Bennett: Transwoman.I just want to be seen as a parent with everything that goes with it...
Managing Expectations
Corinne: I have to manage my expectations and realize that the person that I looked like before will always be what I look like to some extent. I look like myself from the past. I look like that person’s sister, which is great. I'll accept that. But it's not going to change who you are. I guess what I'm getting at is that this transition can be extremely significant and it's a life saving measure. I would literally not trade anything for how far I've already come. And I'm just at the beginning. I'm never going to be a supermodel, and I'm cool with that.
Lynne: But you know something, that's not true. You might be because the view of people has to change.
Corinne: That is true. Thank you for that.
Lynne: Talk a little more about your family.
Corinne: So Shannon and I have been together since May of 2010... we've been together for 10 years. We've known each other since we four, but we really met as young adults, and we reintroduced ourselves... We fell in love and we started dating before I joined the Marine Corps. And then we have been together ever since we got married in 2012 when I came home from Afghanistan, and we had our daughter one year later, and then we had another daughter, and a son. So, we have 3 children now. I wasn't in a position to come out until much later in our marriage... I think she understood that I wasn't your typical cis-male, and we both were open about the fact that we were Bi, at a very minimum, you know, and explored and experimented with each other. I did not come out to her as trans until July of 2018. I came out to her via video call from Japan and it was rough...
"That change is the most dramatic for people who were closest to you."
...It was really rough, but she accepted it. She didn't understand, but she accepted it. And then we didn't talk for weeks. It was a huge change. And even though she is just as much of a progressive liberal as I am hearing that your husband is now wanting to be your wife is a significant change. At the time, I was hurt because I felt like I wasn't a different person. I felt like I was a more authentic person, and that should mean something. What I didn't understand is that that change is the most dramatic for people who were closest to you. I wasn't as understanding of that as I could have been. And in both of our lack of understandings... I think we both said things that hurt each other, but we were able, thankfully, to work it out. And by the time I came home, we had worked things out together. We decided that we were going to stay together and figure things out. It's a long process that takes a long time, but my marriage and my relationship with her is extremely strong. And I'm very fortunate that she has given me that grace and the patience, because like you said, I'm basically like a teenager now.
Corinne: We were talking about my childhood, right? And my feelings on those things? We were talking about my family structure, and how the transition has been... This is a vain question. Do I sound good enough to have my voice featured?
Lynne: You sound like a 15-year-old girl.
Corinne: I am going through puberty, too.
Lynne: Exactly. You're smack dab in the middle of it.
Corinne: So perfect. Yeah. I can start wherever if you want me to, if you want to start talking.
Lynne: I really enjoyed hearing what you were saying about the dysphoria, your philosophy and your point of view. You're not waking up as Jazz Jennings.
Corinne: This isn't something that's necessarily original to me. I'm no philosopher, but there are a lot of different schools of thought within the trans community about whether or not you need dysphoria to be trans, whether or not people who don't experience dysphoria transition. I don't hold to those beliefs. I specifically have certain younger memories of things that indicate to me now, that I was going through some sort of gender struggle at the time... Not everyone experiences that. It's extremely important to get that up front, to let people know that if you're not the classic fit of someone who wanted to wear their mom or dad's clothes when they were eight. That doesn't necessarily mean that your transition isn't valid. I think there's a lot of pressure on trans people, specifically trans women, to have this horrible, traumatic childhood experience that told them at a young age they were trans, and had to hide it. That doesn't happen for everybody. I think it's important to destroy that narrative because it's expected of us by cis-people, by people who don't understand. There's so much turmoil that comes with transition, to come to the point where you're willing to transition. One of the hardest things to overcome for people in my situation is doubt. I am almost a year into my hormone therapy, into my medical transition, and there are still, much less often now, moments where I'm like, "Maybe I'm not trans. Maybe I'm not a woman. Am I making a mistake?" This is a huge life altering thing, you know what I mean? We already have so much doubt to deal with and I think it's important that people understand that not everybody has those childhood linkages that means they're transgender... I think that expectation is unfair.
Dealing with Dysphoria
Corinne: I do have some memories of my young childhood, sometime between 8 and 9 years old, wearing my mother and my sister's clothes... These memories are not positive for me. They're associated with a lot of guilt and self-hate and shame. My folks are very religious. Not that there's anything wrong with religious people, but they are the Pentecostal extremist type of religious, where if it's not biblically literal, then it's sinful and wrong. I was raised to believe that gay people were possessed by demons and that's why they were how they were. It was this concept of actual literal possession by demons. It wasn't just that it was sinful. It wasn't just that it was wrong. They were possessed by Satan. The guilt that I felt just from those incidents was definitely formative for me. It informed my behavior and development in my puberty years. I knew from a young age that I was attracted to both men and women, and I knew from a young age that I was attracted to the concept of being more feminine than masculine, which again triggered a lot of guilt and doubt and self-hate. And I think that informs my understanding of who I am now... Everyone's journey is equally valid... Because the thing that gets missed with all of this is that it's about you. It's about your personal understanding of who you are. It's a totally normal thing for a cis-gender person to go through a midlife crisis and try to figure out who they are. We joke about it. “Oh, Johnny is going through an identity crisis because he just bought a new Corvette. Fifty-five and he's trying to lose weight.” It's a normal thing. We don't bat an eye... But when someone tries to find themselves within a non-standard method like this, like someone who's trans, all of a sudden... it is odd...
Changes in Hormones, Changes in Self-Perception
Corinne: I'm far more comfortable now looking at what I used to look like and hearing what I used to sound like, because I think there's a lot of separation between then and now. Admittedly, I am still very early in my transition process. But a year is much different than 4 months or 2 months. Early on in this in this conversation, you joked about me being like a teenager and how there are a lot of similarities. Even within the last year, I have matured significantly when it comes to my interactions with my spouse and my children, my interactions with people who are intentionally cruel. Here's a good example of this: I am a motorcycle enthusiast. I love motorcycles. And I used to ride a Harley Davidson. I sold my bike this past summer because I was early in my transition. Any idea of anything that could possibly even be considered typically masculine, I was just like, “No, I don't want it. I hate it, no.” And now I'm a kind of like, “Fuck, I miss my bike.” Obviously, I'm mature enough to understand that there's no such thing as a boy bike or a girl bike. I teach those lessons to my daughters every day. I was trying so hard to make it happen... that I sold my bike. I love my bike... and I'll get another one. It's not the biggest deal. I guess I'm saying that the maturity there has changed. Not everybody's journey is the same.
"Any idea of anything that could possibly be considered typically masculine, I was just like, No, I don't want it. I hate it, no..."
For someone who is just now starting hormone therapy, they have to assume that's just the beginning of their journey. You get that excitement of your first injection and then you realize that you're probably not going to see changes until six months from now. You'll always see changes in yourself first. It is like with weight loss, you'll see the five pounds that you lost, but no one else will see it. It's only when you lose 20 pounds when people notice. The first couple of months for me during my transition, I definitely noticed really insignificant breast growth, nipple enlargement, loss of sexual function, or at least a decrease in libido. My face felt softer, my skin felt softer. I think noticeable changes didn’t happened until October. Even then, I think I looked very much the same, aside from the fact I was losing muscle mass like crazy and gaining a little weight in the face.
Lynne: When did any real actual changes start?
Corinne: So, I left my house as soon as I was an adult and was able to join the Marine Corps. I came home from Afghanistan in January of 2012 and Don't Ask, Don't Tell had been repealed. And there were people, really close friends, that came out at the time. And I remember thinking, “Wow, that's got to be so empowering.” I had a great deal of confusion about it. It was very clearly understood that there was a ticking time bomb, and the Department of Defense was not going to stick up for us. We knew that policy (Transgender ban from the military) was coming down and I actually barely made it. I got my official order to transition in the military before that Jackass banned it. I needed an official diagnosis of gender dysphoria from a military medical provider. I got my diagnosis in January of 2018, one month before the ban went into effect. It was terrifying because it's not so simple. You can't just walk into your provider's office and say, “Hi, I'd like a diagnosis in order to do things correctly.” According to the DSM five, in order to get a diagnosis of gender dysphoria, you have to be displaying consistent symptoms for six months. So, I am actually very lucky that I started going to therapy in Japan and started that counseling process out there, because otherwise I wouldn't have been exempt and I would not have been able to transition... Once your mental health provider gives you that diagnosis, your chain of command is immediately notified. So, the day that I got that diagnosis from my provider, this 30-year colonel in charge of my regiment was notified. And the next day I had to sit down with him and talk to him about it.
Lynne: How did he respond?
Corinne: Extremely positively. I was shocked. I was absolutely shocked by how positive the reception was for me. His name was Mike Stessel. He was very much your typical Marine Colonel. I had seen this man pick up a friend of mine by his jacket and shake him because we were on a live fire range and my friend had done something stupid. He is just not the type of person that you would want to mess with. My mental health provider promised me that he would take it well, but I was still terrified. So, we sat down, and he brought in the rest of the chain of command that had need to know. It was like the operations officer, the executive officer, him, the sergeant major and then my mental health provider.
Lynne: Did anyone respond negatively?
Corinne: Mostly cowards... I say that because it's mostly people hiding behind the Internet comment section that have something to say. And honestly, those have been pretty rare. I did have one issue with a staff non-commissioned officer within my regiment. When I had started my transition and I finally got permission to grow my hair out, I had to grow my hair out for a couple of weeks. It was pretty obvious that I hadn't just missed my haircut. And I had an individual there who was one rank above me confront me about it. “So hey, go get your haircut. You look unprofessional.” And I was like, “Hey, my name is this. This is what I'm going through. If you have any questions, please contact my immediate supervisor, because that's the person that you need to talk to... And Have a nice day.” I handled the interaction very respectfully, which is a big thing in the military. That individual took it upon himself to make a big stink and run all over the place, talking to all the other staff and CEOs and officers about what was going on, and how he didn't think it was right that I was able to do this, because he was uninformed. He thought that the ban was a blanket thing as opposed to having exceptions. The long story short is it didn't matter because I ended up fixing the issue with the legal department. But that was really the only face-to-face negative interaction I had. I didn't expect that much support from them. As far as the ban goes, well... I went to work for this country, I have given ten years of my life to this country. I deployed four times in support of the mission of the U.S. military. I have missed birthdays. I've missed wedding anniversaries. I've missed the birth of my first child for this country. And to have the dishonor of having people like me banned from the military by tweet by someone who's sick, typically unqualified for their position in the first place, and to have no one do anything about it, that was a huge disappointment for me.
Family Matters
Corinne: All of Shannon's [my wife's] side of the family have immediately and continuously been supportive... My own family was kind of a crapshoot. My older brother had my back from the beginning... but he didn't understand. But, he was accepting of me no matter what. My folks have since come around and are using my correct name and pronouns, which despite their religious beliefs, that's a plus. There were definitely some negative surprises. There are people that I had no idea would not be accepting of it. I lost two of my best friends who I had known for the last decade, one of which was in my wedding. That was shocking... it was like getting stabbed.
What you're doing is bringing visibility to gender nonconforming people... That's going to make all the difference. You'll talk to certain individuals or hear from certain individuals that say like, oh, this is a trend. These are all these snowflakes coming out of their safe spaces and expecting to not be misgendered with their ridiculous blah, blah, blah, blah... It's a bunch of crap. Trans people have always existed in the same sense as gay people have always existed. There’s just a ton more visibility now because the law has finally caught up and is protecting us. Now that we're protected, we're able to come out and say, hey, this is neat. Like it or not, since Obama made it legal for gay people to get married. In the decade since that’s happened, normalization of gay relationships has been dramatic. When you see it, it's not a problem anymore. Most people don't even blink an eye at it. That's what's going to happen with Trans people, as long as we continue to show the world we exist.
Not Just a Trans Woman
Corinne: I'm queer. That was used as a slur for so long. But we're taking it back because it's more accurate. Because is it more effective to say that than to say LGBTQ. We have to take control of our narrative and our dialogue... and by being able to use effective terminology that includes everybody without turning off the cis community, by making it seem like we're just coming up with a bunch of shit. That's important, because at the end of the day, I don't want to be seen as Corinne Bennett: Transwoman.I just want to be seen as a parent with everything that goes with it...
Managing Expectations
Corinne: I have to manage my expectations and realize that the person that I looked like before will always be what I look like to some extent. I look like myself from the past. I look like that person’s sister, which is great. I'll accept that. But it's not going to change who you are. I guess what I'm getting at is that this transition can be extremely significant and it's a life saving measure. I would literally not trade anything for how far I've already come. And I'm just at the beginning. I'm never going to be a supermodel, and I'm cool with that.
Lynne: But you know something, that's not true. You might be because the view of people has to change.
Corinne: That is true. Thank you for that.
Lynne: Talk a little more about your family.
Corinne: So Shannon and I have been together since May of 2010... we've been together for 10 years. We've known each other since we four, but we really met as young adults, and we reintroduced ourselves... We fell in love and we started dating before I joined the Marine Corps. And then we have been together ever since we got married in 2012 when I came home from Afghanistan, and we had our daughter one year later, and then we had another daughter, and a son. So, we have 3 children now. I wasn't in a position to come out until much later in our marriage... I think she understood that I wasn't your typical cis-male, and we both were open about the fact that we were Bi, at a very minimum, you know, and explored and experimented with each other. I did not come out to her as trans until July of 2018. I came out to her via video call from Japan and it was rough...
"That change is the most dramatic for people who were closest to you."
...It was really rough, but she accepted it. She didn't understand, but she accepted it. And then we didn't talk for weeks. It was a huge change. And even though she is just as much of a progressive liberal as I am hearing that your husband is now wanting to be your wife is a significant change. At the time, I was hurt because I felt like I wasn't a different person. I felt like I was a more authentic person, and that should mean something. What I didn't understand is that that change is the most dramatic for people who were closest to you. I wasn't as understanding of that as I could have been. And in both of our lack of understandings... I think we both said things that hurt each other, but we were able, thankfully, to work it out. And by the time I came home, we had worked things out together. We decided that we were going to stay together and figure things out. It's a long process that takes a long time, but my marriage and my relationship with her is extremely strong. And I'm very fortunate that she has given me that grace and the patience, because like you said, I'm basically like a teenager now.