Out Service Members Show Their Pride

The requisite Pride flags and rainbow-colored balloons decorated the staging area set up on a patch of grassy lawn. A DJ spun dance music, same-sex couples held hands, and kids were decked out in beaded necklaces la Mardi Gras.

It could have been one of the hundreds of Pride celebrations held across the country. Yet a weightiness hung in the air as more than 100 people waited to begin walking down Travis Boulevard at Travis Air Force Base in Fairfield, California.

For this Pride Walk would mark the first time such an event was held on a U.S. military installation. Organized by the first LGBT private organization to be sanctioned on a U.S. military base, those participating in the less-than-a-mile march late in the afternoon of Friday, June 20 were witnesses to another chapter in LGBT history.

Among them was Kevin Douglas, 63, who retired from the Air Force in 1991 as a master sergeant. The formerly married father of three kids, whose youngest son is gay, came out after leaving the military.

"This is a moment that just blows me away," said Douglas as he marched down the base's main boulevard. "It's been hard coming."

Since the demise of the military's anti-gay "Don't Ask, Don't Tell" policy in 2011, which opened the door for gay, lesbian, and bisexual service members to serve openly in the armed forces, out service members have increasingly been showing off their Pride. (Pentagon policy still bans transgender people from serving openly in the military.)

That same year, San Diego's Pride parade in July was the first to welcome a contingent of out service members, although they were out of uniform and it was a few months before the official repeal took effect September 20, 2011. Since then members of California's Army National Guard and the California State Military Reserve have participated at several of the state's Pride events, including marching in the Los Angeles Pride parade last year and staffing an informational booth at Pride festivals in San Francisco and Sacramento.

"I think because of the fact DADT is gone and we can serve openly now, most of us are proud of our uniforms," said Debra Liles, 52, who is lesbian and retired from the Air Force in 2012 as the chief of enlisted professional military education at Randolph Air Force Base in San Antonio, Texas.
Airman First Class Jasmine Sanders, left, and Senior Airman Ashleigh Summers talked about the significance of last week's Pride Walk at Travis Air Force Base.

Last fall a number of LGB airmen at Travis decided to found an LGBT Alliance at their base. This February they gained formal recognition as a private group, and due to the Department of Defense declaring June as Pride Month, won approval from the base leadership to hold the Pride Walk last week.

"Today is about instilling a sense of pride in our airmen, pride in our families, and pride in being in the U.S. Air Force," said Captain Robert MacArthur, 30, who is gay and president of the LGBT Alliance, in his welcoming remarks. "It is about having Pride in being who we are."

In an interview with the Bay Area Reporter , which was one of three media outlets invited to cover the inaugural Pride Walk, Senior Airman Ashleigh Summers, 24, who is bisexual, said she felt "ecstatic" and "emotional" as she marched at the head of the walk holding the LGBT Alliance's banner that read "Come As You Are."

Having joined the Air Force prior to the repeal of DADT, "I didn't think I would ever be marching down the street of Travis Air Force Base waving rainbow flags," said Summers, the LGBT Alliance's treasurer.

Helping to carry the banner was Jasmine Sanders, 25, a lesbian and airman first class, who is married to fellow Airman First Class Joyce Spalding, 23.

"I was just overwhelmed," said Sanders, the LGBT Alliance's education awareness chair.

More Work to Do

Despite pulling off the walk and an after party that attracted more than 200 people, alliance members said there is more work to be done to ensure out service members are welcomed on base.

"I spent 30 years in the Air Force. I never imagined our Air Force would come as far as we have on this issue," said Liles, who serves as the LGBT Alliance's senior adviser and lives on base with her fiancee. "But make no mistake. We are no where near where we need to be on acceptance."

MacArthur, a dental officer who will be transferring to Elmendorf Air Fore Base in Anchorage, Alaska in August, told the B.A.R. there are a variety of issues out service members continue to deal with post DADT, from hearing anti-gay slurs on base to not being promoted due to their sexual orientation.

A group like the LGBT Alliance is needed on base, said MacArthur, because "there is discrimination still." Without the group serving as a voice for its members, he added, "the leadership isn't going to know the pulse of LGBT service members on base."

The alliance has 50 active members, the majority of whom are LGBT. It is open to anyone, civilian or military, stationed at Travis. A few members are in the closet, and one of its youngest members is a 13-year-old transgender boy whose parents are in the military.

"In our age group or rank, a lot of people didn't experience a lot of the pain of DADT. So we are in the military and grew up thinking it is okay to be who you are," said Sanders. "At military installations and bases we should be allowed to be who we are."

Service members at other military installations interested in forming their own LGBT affinity groups have contacted the alliance at Travis for guidance.

"We are setting the precedent for all the other LGBT Alliance private organizations that come after us, so we have to fight that fight for everybody else," said Summers.

One issue the group likely will press is being able to march in next year's Pride Walk in uniform. They were barred from doing so this year, explained a base public affairs sergeant, because current policy prohibits service members from taking part in a private organization's event while wearing their uniforms unless it is to celebrate a federal holiday.

Thus, LGBT Alliance members participating in the San Francisco AIDS Walk next month will do so out of uniform. If they were to march in San Francisco's Veteran's Day Parade this November, however, they could do so in uniform since it is a nationally recognized day of remembrance.

Earlier in June the LGBT Alliance participated in Sacramento's Pride, where the group had a booth. It had planned to also man a booth at San Francisco's Pride festival this weekend but did not apply due to the board of the San Francisco LGBT Pride Celebration Committee voting to ban military recruiters from the festival grounds.

The policy does not bar active military groups from marching in the parade. But the LGBT Alliance did not apply to be a parade contingent at any local Pride events this year.

Several alliance members told the B.A.R. they would like to someday march in a city's Pride parade in uniform.

"I would like to march in San Francisco's Pride parade, that would be groundbreaking," said Summers, who attended last year's event as a private citizen.