She attended West Point before gender reassignment, graduated in 1994 majoring in her undergraduate degree in physics, and was then commissioned as an officer serving in the U.S. Army until 1999.

[5] Also prior to transition, she became an ordained Baptist minister, earning from the Baylor University's George W. Truett Theological Seminary, a Master of Divinity (M.Div.).

[16][17][18][19] She later held an internship at Los Alamos National Laboratory and then commanded a Patriot missile unit in Europe and the Middle East before leaving the U.S. Army in 1999.

[3] She has been a member of the board of directors of several advocacy groups, including the International Foundation for Gender Education, the Association of Welcoming and Affirming Baptists, and Knights Out.

[15] The group was in the process of losing much of its funding base after the official September 2011 repeal of Don't ask, don't tell (DADT), the official United States policy on banning and expelling gays serving in the military enacted in 1993.