Movie Review: Lady Valor

I was fortunate to get a seat at a private screening of an upcoming CNN movie called Lady Valor.  It’s the story of Kristin Beck who was a 20 yr. Navy SEAL/veteran and is now a transgender champion for lots of different things.  The screening was held in the Time Warner Building on 58th St. in New York City right near Lincoln Center. The theater was on the 10th floor of the building and there were probably 80+ in attendance.

When I say I was fortunate to get in, it was a RSVP list. Not knowing what to expect, I got down to the city early and parked across the street and walked about the shops for an hour before going in to the lobby to wait to be called up to the theater. My bags were checked at security just like going for a flight, as they were x-rayed. I met some new people going up to the theater on the elevator and one turned out to be one of the panelists who appeared after the movie, and a local reporter who interviewed Kristin before the screening.

We were in the first wave of people and when we walked into the theater area, I saw Kristin and walked over to say hi. She saw me and said “Hi Jan” and we hugged and then the onslaught of people happened. I happened to meet her last year at Fantasia Fair (she stayed in the same apartment house as I did) and invited her to join in a “home cooked” dinner so we had some one-on-one sharing time. Nice person. Really nice person.

Lady Valor is about a two hour movie which tells the story of Kristin’s life from youth in Wellsville, NY (south of Buffalo) with her father, sister and brother on screen (and her mother and 2 sisters choosing to remain off screen). Before she was Kristin, she was Chris and was a go-getter as a kid and youth, and remained that way into adulthood. There were scenes of the family getting together at the old family home, scenes of some of the places she hung out as a kid and even scenes of the family getting together on the rifle range shooting everything from handguns to rifles to machine guns. Typical family stuff. Right!

Much of the film talked about Kristin’s military service and how she handled it as Chris with multiple tours of duty overseas and even in the Pentagon. There was a little about SEAL training and only a few get selected for that elite Navy unit. To this day, she still advises the military about “SEAL type” things.  You see Chris in a beard in far off places like Afghanistan in footage from her private film archives (at least what is eligible to be shown).

It’s juxtaposed with scenes of Kristin’s life today and travels on the road to places like San Diego, Virginia, Florida and DC and elsewhere. She sometimes travels to places in a small RV with her rescue dog. Early on, there was one segment which showed Kristin at the Southern Comfort TG conference in Atlanta at the gathering of TG’s who served in the military. Several spoke about doing this or that in their military service (wide variety) but they couldn’t do much about their TG nature until after their service was over.

Would you like to see the film? You can.

The film was great. Everyone can see it on CNN at 9 p.m. on September 4. I’ve got it set up on my DVR’ already so will record it. Do check it out.

The panel discussion…

After the film, there was a panel discussion lead by a CNN news person (didn’t catch his name) but he kept things moving along. It was a good discussion group with Kristin, Kimberly Reed (whose movie Prodigal Son profiled her transition journey, Jack Drescher who’s a psychiatrist and another gentleman from the community. The panel lasted approximately a half hour and the discussion centered on transgender civil rights and how difficult it is to come out as a transgender.

I enjoyed the film, panel and just being out and about in the city. It was a good evening.

Huggs, Jan

Tags: featured, Kristin Beck, Lady Valor, opinion

Category: Product Review, Transgender Community News