A transgender soldier who fought to wear the Army uniform wonders if it still fits
CAMP HUMPHREYS, South Korea - Cathrine Schmid longed to be a soldier. To wear the uniform her grandfather wore.
She had a secret reason too: to belong somewhere that would suppress her innermost self.
"Maybe the Army will make these feelings go away," she told herself. "The Army will make a man out of me."
That was 14 years ago, when, as a man, she enlisted. Schmid wore the uniform and guarded her secret self at military bases in Missouri, Arizona, Germany, Kansas, Florida, Iraq, Washington and Korea.
The Army didn't change her, hard as it, and she, tried. Instead, in eventually becoming herself, Schmid took part in a still uncertain effort to change the Army.
When she finally put on the uniform that felt right - the dress blues with knee-length skirt and gold braid - she danced for joy with her spouse in front of soldiers who had known her as a man. Maybe for the first time she belonged.
But now, the military that embraced Schmid has been directed once again to shun soldiers like her. A ban ordered by President Donald Trump went into effect April 12, overturning a 3-year-old Pentagon directive that said transgender soldiers would no longer be forced to hide.
