Get extended access to 1600+ episodes, binge watch your favorite shows, and stream anytime - online or in the PBS app.
Already a KIXE PBS member?
You may have an unactivated KIXE PBS Passport member benefit. Check to see.
Special | Video has closed captioning.
Sue McConnell and Kristyn Weed are best friends and Vietnam-era veterans. Although they didn’t serve in the war together, they share a story of courage — on and off the battlefield. They met at a transgender veterans’ support group and became inseparable members of a powerful, enduring sisterhood.
Aired: 05/22/19
Kristyn Weed (KW): I didn't start transitioning until I was 58.
Sue McConnell (SM): I guess I was 50.
KW: How did your family accept you?
SM: Well, my son disowned me.
He told his mother that he didn't want anything to do with the f----- freak.
So I don't get to talk to my grandson or my granddaughter.
KW: My family is similar to yours.
SM: Your daughter disowned you?
KW: Both my daughters disowned me, yeah.
SM: Yeah.
KW: Yeah.
SM: When I was growing up, I always knew there was something different.
I didn't like the same things the other boys did.
You know, they wanted to play Army and cowboys and Indians.
And I wanted to be the girl on the wagon that was sewing and making coffee [laughs].
KW: Right.
SM: But you know, I had to be who I wasn't so that I could survive.
KW: I spent 15 years in the Army and I enlisted of all places, as a paratrooper going to the 82nd Airborne Division.
And the units I was in, the soldiers were pretty hard-charging.
So that was the image you had to portray.
I didn't start wearing women's clothes until I was out of the military.
I wouldn't do it, because I was afraid.
SM: But then, we met at the transgender support group-- KW: Yeah, the VA support group-- SM: And we started joking and then just like nitpicking at each other and stuff-- KW: [laughs] SM:--and people said, 'Well you guys really are sisters!'
We do sit around and talk a lot.
We would sit in Denny's for coffee at like 2 o'clock in the afternoon and it'd be dark-- KW: And leave there at 10 o'clock at night SM:--10 o'clock at night.
SM & KW: [laughs] KW: The servers all know us, the managers know us.
SM: She flirts with all the waitresses.
KW: Me?
[laughs] SM: Yes, you do!
SM & KW: [laughs] KW: We get twenty percent military discount!
SM: Yes, we do!
KW: [laughs] You know, it hurts to have lost my daughters, but I found out love is not a two-way street.
And love is not unconditional.
SM: It is for some of us.
KW: You're always there for me.
There's never a doubt or question as to whether you would be or not.
SM: You are my sister.
KW: I'm glad of it.
Newsletter
Every two weeks, we curate a selection of POV docs, old and new, around a central theme. Stream while you can — until the next Playlist!
Subscribe
