Transgender athlete Aaron Stewart is competing in the Invictus Games for the third time — but this is his first as a male.The retired army sergeant from Missouri will be among 550 ill, injured or wounded servicemen and women from 17 nations who will take part in 12 adaptive sports over the next week in Toronto.Discharged from the army in January 2015 due to a serious injury suffered earlier during a deployment to Kuwait, Stewart immediately began taking steps to change his identity and appearance — he had his breasts removed, had a hysterectomy, began hormone shots and legally changed his name from Bethany Erin Stewart to Aaron Edward Stewart.As a transgender athlete, Stewart, who specializes in swimming and cycling and has won eight Invictus medals including two golds, will be competing in Toronto against other servicemen at a time of heated debate in the U.S. over whether transgender people should even be allowed to serve their country.U.S. President Donald Trump ignited a storm of controversy in July when he tweeted he was reinstating a ban on transgender individuals in the military. He cited medical costs and “disruption” in the military as his reasons. The move would reverse a policy — announced under former U.S. president Barack Obama and still under final review — that would allow them to serve openly. Transgender personnel, of whom there are 1,320 to 6,630 active members, according to a RAND study, remain in the U.S. military while the matter is being studied. Stewart calls Trump’s ban “unjust.”“As long as you can perform your job, it’s nobody’s business,” Stewart, 33, says in a lengthy phone interview from Missouri before setting out for Toronto. He agreed to speak to the Star before the Games got underway because he didn’t want to be constrained by spokespeople for the event, especially given his views on Trump’s transgender ban.“Because you identify as a ma ...
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