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Margarethe Cammermeyer (1943
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 Serving
in Silence by Margarethe Cammermeyer, Chris Fisher
Once an army colonel, Cammermeyer served as a
nurse for 26 years, during which she received the Bronze Star
after 15 months in Vietnam, was named Nurse of the Year in 1985 by
the Veterans Administration, and from 1986 to 1992 headed the
Washington State National Guard's nursing corps. Her honest
answers about being a lesbian to a 1989 security clearance check
became an issue when she came up for consideration as chief nurse
of the entire National Guard and led to her discharge. Serving
in Silence sketches her early years, her marriage and
children, her army career, and events leading up to her discharge
and subsequent victory over the army in federal district court.
(Since the events reported in this book, the Ninth U.S. Circuit
Court of Appeals, saying her discharge was based on prejudice and
violated her constitutional rights, upheld the lower court's
ruling.) Timely and provocative, Cammermeyer's story has been made
into a TV movie produced by Barbra Streisand and starring Glenn
Close. Marie Kuda from Booklist
 Out
of the Ordinary : Essays on Growing Up With Gay, Lesbian, and
Transgender Parents by Noelle Howey (Editor), Ellen
Samuels (Editor), Margarethe Cammermeyer, Dan Savage (Preface)
While hearing "faggot" yelled at you
in a high school corridor would upset almost anyone, here is
evidence that hearing "Your father's a faggot" isn't
nearly as bad, and that you might find yourself levelheadedly
retorting, "No, my father's a transgendered lesbian."
This unprecedented collection of short memoirs by adult children
of gay, lesbian, and transgender parents demonstrates once again
that love cannot be policed or regulated, and that the bond
between parents and children transcends petty categories. Kelley
Conway's "My Mother and the Nun" describes the confusion
a 14-year-old girl feels when her mother falls in love with
another woman at the same time that Conway herself is beginning to
recognize her own attractions to other girls. In Peter Snow's
"Acting Lessons," a college boy returns home to find
that his parents, who have always been unhappily married, are
still together, and in fact are cozied up on the couch watching
television with his mother's lover, Jackie. What is missing from
this volume are essays by children who were born or adopted into
same-sex families. Without this perspective, the memoirs are
somewhat skewed, since almost every writer had to deal not only
with a parent's coming out but with a wrenching divorce, often
caused by that parent's sexuality. Nevertheless, this collection
should prove helpful to therapists, youth counselors, and families
with gay members, and contribute positively to the debates on
same-sex parenting and adoption. --Regina Marler
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Margarethe Cammermeyer (1943 -)
MILITARY,
ACTIVISM
Margarethe Cammermeyer is a recipient of the
Bronze Star, but was discharged from the Army National Guard after
revealing her lesbianism. She is now an
Activist.
A movie
has been made, starring Glenn Close, based upon Cammermeyer's
autobiography, about her experience with the U.S. government.
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United States District Court
This is a .pdf file of the case brought against
the U.S. government by Cammermeyer.
Excerpt:
Margarethe Cammermeyer brings this declaratory
judgment action against the Government claiming that her discharge
from military service under Army Regulation 135-175, based solely
on her admission that she is a lesbian, violated her rights to
equal protection of the laws guaranteed under the Fifth Amendment
to the United States Constitution. She also claims her
discharge violated her right to privacy under the First, Fourth,
Fifth and Ninth Amendments to the Constitution, her substantive
due process rights under the Fifth Amendment and her right to
freedom of speech under the First Amendment. Cammermeyer
further claims that Army Regulation 135-175 is an invalid exercise
of executive power violative of the constitutional separation of powers,
and that the regulation violates principles of federalism...
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From PlanetOut.com
Excerpt:
As the battle against
lesbians and gays in the military wages on like the Hundred Years
War, the highest-ranking of those to speak out is Col. Margarethe
Cammermeyer.
One of thousands of lesbian and gay people ousted not for any
action but simply for their sexual orientation, Cammermeyer served
in the Army, Army Reserve, and National Guard. She received
numerous awards and distinctions, including the Bronze Star for
distinguished service in Vietnam...
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Seven years after the fight
over gays in the military, Margarethe Cammermeyer turns her
attention to the war against AIDS.
From the April 1999 issue of A&U
magazine
by Dann Dulin
Excerpt:
Don't ask, don't tell? Hogwash! Colonel
Margarethe Cammermeyer did tell. In 1992, she was discharged from
the military for disclosing that she was a lesbian during a
routine security clearance examination. Cammermeyer had
twenty-eight years in the military, including serving in Vietnam
at the age of twenty-four, receiving the Bronze Star--rare at that
time for a woman--for her work as a nurse. As a soldier, she was
trained to fight. And so she did. She took a stand for human
rights and challenged the military's antigay policy. She went to
court and won.
Cammermeyer was born in Norway where her parents
fought against the Nazis for the Norwegian underground during
WWII. Their liberation by American troops marked the beginning of
Cammermeyer's strong connection with America. Her family emigrated
to the United States when she was eight and she became a citizen
at eighteen...
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Names Index:
A B
C D
E F
G H
I J
K L
M N
O P
Q R
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U V
W X
Y Z
| Authors
Index | Scholars
Index |
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