Autumn Sandeen is a

transgender activist The transgender rights movement is a movement to promote the legal status of transgender people and to eliminate discrimination and violence against transgender people regarding housing, employment, public accommodations, education, and health c ...

and

US Navy The United States Navy (USN) is the maritime service branch of the United States Armed Forces and one of the eight uniformed services of the United States. It is the largest and most powerful navy in the world, with the estimated tonnage of ...

veteran A veteran () is a person who has significant experience (and is usually adept and esteemed) and expertise in a particular occupation or field. A military veteran is a person who is no longer serving in a military. A military veteran that has ...

. In 2013, she became the first US service member to succeed in petitioning the Defense Department to publicly change her gender identification on all her military records.

Early life

Sandeen was born Stephen Mark Sandeen in

Northridge, California Northridge is a neighborhood in the San Fernando Valley region of the City of Los Angeles. The community is home to California State University, Northridge, and the Northridge Fashion Center. Originally named Zelzah by settlers in 1908, the comm ...

. Her father is Jack Sandeen, a film and television costumer and later the wardrobe department head at Walt Disney Studios. At age 14, Sandeen became aware of her own

gender dysphoria Gender dysphoria (GD) is the distress a person experiences due to a mismatch between their gender identitytheir personal sense of their own genderand their sex assigned at birth. The diagnostic label gender identity disorder (GID) was used until ...

, as she felt her developing body did not match her

gender identity Gender identity is the personal sense of one's own gender. Gender identity can correlate with a person's assigned sex or can differ from it. In most individuals, the various biological determinants of sex are congruent, and consistent with the i ...

Navy service

Sandeen served as a fire controlman in the US Navy from 1980 to 2000. During her service, Sandeen primarily focused on the maintenance of equipment used in the aiming and firing of guns and missiles. She worked in bases throughout the Northern Hemisphere and served on four ships. She was discharged with a 100% disability rating (service-related).

Gender transition

In the late 1990s, Sandeen began seriously considering transitioning after she left the Navy. She started the process in February 2003 and officially took on the first name Autumn in July 2003. Sandeen has worked to change all official records – including those pertaining to her retirement pay and retirement services – to match her female gender identity. In 2011, she collaborated with the

National Center for Transgender Equality The National Center for Transgender Equality (NCTE) is a nonprofit social equality organization founded in 2003 by transgender activist Mara Keisling in Washington, D.C. The organization works primarily in the areas of policy advocacy and media ...

to construct a methodology for transsexual veterans to change their gender identification in

Veterans Administration The United States Department of Veterans Affairs (VA) is a Cabinet-level executive branch department of the federal government charged with providing life-long healthcare services to eligible military veterans at the 170 VA medical centers and ...

databases. In 2012, she was issued a new

birth certificate A birth certificate is a vital record that documents the birth of a person. The term "birth certificate" can refer to either the original document certifying the circumstances of the birth or to a certified copy of or representation of the ensuin ...

that acknowledged her female identity. The

Department of Defense Department of Defence or Department of Defense may refer to: Current departments of defence * Department of Defence (Australia) * Department of National Defence (Canada) * Department of Defence (Ireland) * Department of National Defense (Philippin ...

was the last governmental body that still recorded Sandeen's gender as male. Sandeen worked with

OutServe-SLDN OutServe-SLDN was a network of LGBT military personnel, formed as a result of the merger between OutServe and the Servicemembers Legal Defense Network. OutServe-SLDN was one of the largest LGBT employee resource groups in the world. OutServe was ...

to determine the required documentation for changing one's gender in Department of Defense databases. Sandeen's change established a procedure for transgender veterans who have completed reassignment surgery to alter their gender identity on Pentagon records. She received a letter officially confirming her identification as female in Department of Defense records effective April 12, 2013.

GLAAD GLAAD (), an acronym of Gay & Lesbian Alliance Against Defamation, is an American non-governmental media monitoring organization originally founded as a protest against defamatory coverage of gay and lesbian demographics and their portrayals ...

hailed Sandeen as the first service member to publicly change her gender identification under the Department of Defense.

Transgender activism

Sandeen served as board member within the Transgender Advocacy and Services Center San Diego from 2006 to 2008. She was arrested twice in 2010 for handcuffing herself to the

White House The White House is the official residence and workplace of the president of the United States. It is located at 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue NW in Washington, D.C., and has been the residence of every U.S. president since John Adams in 1800. ...

fence in protest of

Don't Ask Don't Tell "Don't ask, don't tell" (DADT) was the official United States policy on military service of non-heterosexual people, instituted during the Clinton administration. The policy was issued under Department of Defense Directive 1304.26 on December ...

. Upon release, Sandeen spoke out about the

transphobic Transphobia is a collection of ideas and phenomena that encompass a range of negative attitudes, feelings, or actions towards transgender people or transness in general. Transphobia can include fear, aversion, hatred, violence or anger tow ...

mistreatment she experienced while in prison. Sandeen currently blogs for ''The Transadvocate''. She lives in

San Diego San Diego ( , ; ) is a city on the Pacific Ocean coast of Southern California located immediately adjacent to the Mexico–United States border. With a 2020 population of 1,386,932, it is the List of United States cities by population, eigh ...

, California.

References

External links

"Veteran Reveals Life As Transgender In Military"
ABC10, February 4, 2011
"Radio interview with Autumn Sandeen" (audio)
''Hellidaze'', December 15, 2010
"Thirteen Heroes. Including One of Our Own. A Photo Essay"
''

Daily Kos Daily Kos ( ) is a group blog and internet forum focused on the U.S. Democratic Party and liberal American politics. The site includes glossaries and other content. It is sometimes considered an example of "netroots" activism. Daily Kos was f ...

'', November 19, 2010 {{DEFAULTSORT:Sandeen, Autumn Year of birth missing (living people) Living people Transfeminists Transgender women writers American transgender writers Transgender rights activists American LGBT military personnel Female United States Navy personnel Transgender military personnel People from Northridge, Los Angeles United States Navy sailors LGBT people from California 21st-century American LGBT people