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KNOW about McConnell and Weed’s connection who were divided by their kids and united by sisterhood
Vietnam veterans Sue McConnell and Kriss Weed find solace and sisterhood amid struggles with identity. Their families have rejected them as their silence about assault haunted them for years.
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McConnell and Weed bonded over shared experiences at a VA support group
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Despite facing rejection from their children, they discovered love and support
To Sue McConnell and Kriss Weed, life after serving in the military was a different battle entirely. They fought with themselves: addiction, identity, pasts. But they had each other. It started at a Veterans Affairs transgender support group in Tucson in 2013.
An immediate connection formed between McConnell and Weed, one built on shared experience, laughter, and understanding of pain so deep that people often thought they were sisters.
Most recently, the pair sat across from one another at a Denny’s, a symbolic place that reflected their own process of reconstruction after the devastation.
Silent battles
Weed says she spent most of her life hiding herself from everyone but a select few friends because she feared what could happen if she lived authentically as a transgender woman. Her ex-spouse outed her to their community while they were still married.
“I was not ready,” Weed said. “I didn’t know how dangerous it was.”
McConnell faced trauma during her service in the Navy. Afterward, when she says she was sexually assaulted by an officer whom her male commanders forced her to continue working under once they found out about her female gender identity.
She struggled silently with the incident for years without telling anyone, the silence that haunted her until she finally spoke up nearly two decades later.
Healing journeys
But somewhere along the way, despite all of the fear, shame, and regret, McConnell decided to get this tattoo of a winged woman on her arm, which represents freedom and self-acceptance.
Weed chose this path toward herself around the same time, though it meant losing custody of some kids forever because they couldn’t understand or accept why their father would become someone else.
Both of their adult children stopped talking to them after they came out as transgender. Weed’s wife, brother, and extended family still love her; McConnell’s ex-wife and friends still support her; each other, they found sisterhood.
Through it all—highs, lows, and everything in between—they have remained steadfast allies. Their bond has grown only stronger with time. To McConnell, Weed will always be her sister, a constant source of love and support.
Now in their 60s, both McConnell and Weed have spent the past few decades creating lives worth living, sometimes even enjoyable ones for themselves as proud transgender women
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