AVER Elects New President;
Committed to Transgender Service
by Danny Ingram |
|
American Veterans for Equal
Rights (AVER), the nation's oldest Lesbian, Gay,
Bisexual, and Transgender veterans service
organization held its biennial convention in
late September in Chicago. Delegates representing
chapters from Ft. Lauderdale to Seattle attended
the three-day conference where sessions were
presented by the LGBT Outreach of the Veterans
Administration, the Chicago Commission on Human
Relations, and the John Marshall Law School
Veterans Clinic, among others. Speakers
included former Deputy Assistant Secretary of
Defense for Operational Energy, Amanda Simpson,
who in 2010 became the first openly transgender
woman political appointee of any administration.
Retired US Coast Guard Chief
Boatswain’s Mate Julz Carey was elected the new
AVER National President at the convention.
Fifty-nine year old Carey succeeds US Army (ret)
Vietnam veteran LTC Steve Loomis and is the
first woman to lead the veterans organization in
over a decade. Carey served as one of the first
women aboard a US combatant ship when the Coast
Guard stationed 24 women aboard two cutters as
an experiment in 1977. The success of this
experiment led to the full integration of women
aboard US Coast Guard and Navy vessels, and
later submarines. In January, 2015, Carey and
her fellow female shipmates were honored at a
dedication at the Naval Memorial in Washington,
DC.
US Army LTC (ret) Steve Loomis passes the AVER
guidon to USCG Chief
Boatswin's Mate (ret)
Julz Carey in a formal change of command
ceremony in Chicago.
At a formal military banquet
on Saturday evening AVER presented its highest
honor, the Leonard Matlovich Medal for
Distinguished Service, to United States Navy
Senior Chief Special Warfare Operator Kristin
Beck. Beck served 20 years in the Navy, taking
part in 13 deployments, including seven combat
deployments. Her many decorations include a
Purple Heart and a Bronze Star with Valor
device. Kristin Beck, who came out as a trans
woman in 2013, has become one of the nation’s
most prominent leaders in the fight for
Transgender Service in the United States
Military. The Matlovich Medal is named in honor
of USAF TechSgt Leonard Matlovich who was one of
the first gay service members to purposely out
himself to the military to fight the ban on LGBT
service members. Matlovich became one of the
most public gay Americans of the 1970s and 80s
before the AIDS epidemic took his life in 1988.
Former US Navy SEAL
Kristin Beck was presented the Leonard Matlovich
Distinguished Service Medal at AVER’s military
banquet on September 22.
The “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell”
ban on gay service was lifted in 2011, but
transgender service has come under attack by the
nation’s current administration which would bar
transgender people from serving “in any
capacity.” Carey reaffirmed AVER’s commitment
to Transgender service in her confirmation
remarks. “We will not consider DADT to be fully
repealed until transgender patriots are accepted
as equal members of the US Armed Forces,” she
said. “Our service members will never feel
inclusive if we are exclusive.”
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