Virginia Beach, Va. - A former Virginia Beach Navy SEAL said she and Bruce Jenner's stories are nearly identical.
Chris Beck, now known as Kristin Beck, was married, had kids and served our country as a member of SEAL Team 6. Like Jenner, Beck said she could not continue to hide her true self.
"I don`t know of any other transgender people like myself or Bruce that have gotten to that point," Beck told The Insider in an interview earlier this week. "It`s somewhere beyond what most people would ever imagine."
Much like the Olympian hid his desires to become a woman, Beck hid those same feelings while serving our country.
"No one ever met the real me," said Beck during an interview with CNN's Anderson Cooper in 2013. "No one knew anything."
Beck and Jenner both first confided in their older sisters about their gender identity. Beck said she would secretly try on her sister's clothes.
"I got really good at being that sneaky about memorizing positions of stuff and how to put it back so it was exact," said Beck. "She never knew."
Jenner's ex-wives and Beck's ex-wife both knew about their desires to become women during their marriages. Beck explained the rift it caused in his family.
"She hid it," Beck explained of his ex-wife's reaction. "She just tried to like, isolate it and don`t let anyone else know."
Beck is currently in a relationship with a woman. Jenner told Diane Sawyer he would still be married to Kris Jenner if it were his choice.
There is at least one place where the Beck and Jenner journeys don't align. While Jenner has discussed his transition with all of his children, Beck has not.
"Not in person," she said. "It`s just the toughest part of my life. I feel this huge chasm has been created between my kids and everything else and I don`t know how to bring it together."
