queerguru talks to 29 year old  British Army Captain Hannah Winterbourne and activist/filmmaker Jake Graf. Hannah is the one of the Army’s highest ranking serving transgender Officers and is the trans advisor for the entire British Army.  but one of the highest ranking. She is also the Patron of The Mermaids Charity, that works with trans and gender non conforming children and their families,  Jake, her boyfriend of seven months, is a trans filmmaker whose short movies have been winning awards around the world. Last week both of them were named in the UK’s Out Global Pride Power List of the top movers and shakers in the LGBT community for their dedicated activism, and are now recognized as a ‘trans power couple’. With such refreshing candor and honesty they beautifully articulate about so many of the misconceptions in the media of so much of the transgender narrative, and they do so, with such passion.  

We talked to them about their impressive success in being role models just as  P Town’s Camp Lightbulb for LGBT kids wrapped up, and on the day after the U.S. Defense Department announced that they will now welcome transgender man and women into the military.  Also in the headlines this morning was the announcement of an updated study from The Williams Institute at the UCLA School of Law shows that the U.S. transgender community may have as many as 1.4 million adults.  The timing for this conversation could not have been better, and it should be part of a continuing  dialogue too.

Hannah and Jake are a disarmingly charming couple, and it was both a privilege and a sheer joy to talk to them for P.T.V.