Like many transgender women before they come out, I tried to act as masculine as I could. I played every sport possible, and always tried to be the strongest, fastest boy on the playground. My family has a history of military service, so I told people my dream was to be in the Army. What could be manlier than joining the military? In my sophomore year at Florida Atlantic University, I joined Army R.O.T.C. I also finally began to accept myself, but I didn’t come to the conclusion that I am transgender until 2010, almost a year after I had committed to an Army R.O.T.C. scholarship.

My choices were simple, yet complex: serve the nation or serve myself. On the one hand, I no longer felt the need to act supermasculine in my life, and I saw a path forward. On the other, I saw a nation at war and I wanted to help. In the end, I couldn’t resist the call to serve. In 2011, I graduated and accepted my commission as a second lieutenant in the Army. Eight months later, I was in Afghanistan managing communications for an aviation task force in Zabul Province.

For more than four years, I suppressed my secret. Living a lie left me utterly exhausted, but the worst part was never being able to talk to anyone about what I was feeling. I had served in Afghanistan, Indonesia and Germany, and my mental health was deteriorating. I was depressed and found little enjoyment in life.

Image Ashton Carter, then the Secretary of Defense, announcing an end to the United States military’s ban on transgender service in June 2016. Credit... Alex Brandon/Associated Press

That all changed in July 2015 when the Department of Defense announced that it would begin studying open transgender service. I came out to my family, and when I could, I started living more of my life as myself. It wasn’t perfect, though, as I had to continue keeping this hidden at work. A military unit is like a living being, and a senior leader coming out as transgender in the wrong way could become a self-destructive virus. I felt it was my duty to keep anything about being transgender from making its way into the workplace until the time was right.