Former Navy SEAL Kristin Beck, a transgender woman and advocate, is weighing in on Caitlyn Jenner appearing on the Vanity Fair cover and receiving the Arthur Ashe Courage Award.

Olympic legend and reality TV star Jenner caused a sensation last month when she introduced herself to the world as Caitlyn via Vanity Fair wearing sexy lingerie.

Beck is happy with the attention it brought to transgender people but tells Katie Couric of Yahoo News that the sexy cover shot by veteran photographer Annie Leibovitz would not have been her first choice.

‘There’s so much confusion already in the community,’ she says. ‘That cover — it just wasn’t really the image that I would’ve loved to have seen her in, would be that of, you know, dignity and respect and — there could’ve been so many other ways to do it.’

Beck points out that transgender people been fighting stereotypes ‘for thousands of years’ with their gender issues ‘always been put in the closet as a fetish or having to do with sex or sexual orientation.

‘But it brought a lot of attention,’ she says of the Vanity Fair cover. ‘If you have to sell magazine covers and magazines, then that’s a good way to do it, is by controversy. But I think that the transgender community, we already have so much controversy and misunderstanding, it’s just a shame that we have to heap more upon it.’

But Beck is not among those who were critical of Jenner receiving the Arthur Ashe Courage Award at the ESPYs earlier this month.

‘Caitlyn Jenner is — has star power. That’s pretty much the bottom line. And has been a hero for millions of people since the ’70s when Caitlyn won the gold medal in decathlon.’

Beck retired from the military in 2011 after 20 years of service. She is running for a seat in the US House of Representatives in Maryland’s Fifth Congressional District. She is trying to unseat longtime incumbent Democratic whip Steny Hoyer.