Blog

Almost one in five transgender people are either serving in the military or are veterans, yet our community members still face steep barriers to care. At SAGE, we believe all of our LGBTQ+ elders should have access to the resources needed to thrive and age with respect and dignity.

In honor of National Veterans and Military Families Month and Transgender Awareness Week, SAGE sat down with LGBTQ+ elder Ray Gibson to hear firsthand about his experience. Please take a moment to read more about Ray’s journey below.

Could you tell us about your experience joining the military?

“I was 20 on the dot when I went to boot camp and enlisted in the United States Air Force in 1978. My life was a train wreck. A woman named Lalomie Washburn (she was a backup singer to Chaka Khan, and she wrote for Ray Charles and a few other celebrities) and I got into a really deep conversation. She said, ‘You are too smart. You are too bright, and you’re throwing your life down the toilet. Maybe you should do something drastic.’ I said, ‘Like what?’ She said, ‘Join the military.’ I went, ‘Oh, wait a minute. I don’t know about that.’

I said, ‘You know I don’t like authority,’ and I just couldn’t imagine myself doing that. Two years earlier, my father wanted me to enlist in the Navy Academy, and I was tired of being the first Black person to do this, to do that. I would have been maybe the first Black female to enlist as an officer for the Navy. And because of the same reason I brought up to Lalomie, I told him no.

He gave me a choice between that and going to college. I said college. But my life took nasty turns, and I needed to do something as big as the things that I was messing my life up with.

So, I went ahead, and I enlisted delayed entry. I took all the tests. I passed, and I had six months to change my mind.

So, I picked up and went to Los Angeles. I moved to Los Angeles from my hometown of Omaha. After six months, I went ‘I still don’t like my life.’ I was doing data entry operator type of stuff, and it wasn’t making any money. I couldn’t even afford a car, and so I went in [to boot camp].”

Are you glad that you made such a drastic change?

“Absolutely. It changed my life. I was so undisciplined, and I didn’t really like the chain of command and authority and all that stuff. But I did fairly well all things considered. I did what I was told, and I was one of their star troopers. I pretty much stayed out of trouble and did very well in boot camp.

I landed in the Bay Area with the MOS [Military Occupational Specialty] of data processing specialist, so that was a miracle. I mean, I kind of knew what was going on out there, but not really. Because of my dad, I ended up getting that assignment. All I had to do is show up with an autographed baseball and give it to my recruiter, and he let me go anywhere I wanted.

I’m the eldest son of Bob Gibson, a Hall of Fame baseball player for the St. Louis Cardinals, and that got me some things in life, including my duty station. But my scores got me the job. But where I ended up in the world happened because of giving my recruiter a baseball signed by my dad.”

Did you know that you were part of the LGBTQ+ community before joining the military?

“I did, but I did not know I was transgender. There was no language for me to even know what I was. I knew something was up because I had a lot of thoughts. I told a couple of my cousins that I joined the military to ‘make me a better man.’ I’m pretty sure it came out of my mouth because from time-to-time stuff like that slipped out, and I didn’t understand it.

All I could identify with was the lesbian community. That’s what I gravitated towards because that was the only thing I could see that was similar, although I didn’t like being called a lesbian. I hated that word, but I was part of the LGBTQ+ community at the time.

It was before ‘Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell,’ so I did have to lie or just withhold that information in order not to get bounced out of the military with an other-than-honorable discharge (which hurts you in the civilian world). Yeah, I was in the closet the whole time. I was trying to date guys just to make it look like a front, but every weekend, I was in San Francisco in the lesbian community.

I was stationed near San Jose, so I would get up and boogie down to San Francisco and party hardy. I rode with the Dykes on Bikes in gay parades out there in San Francisco, and I ended up on a TV news bite. I about died because I was like, ‘Oh, my God, oh, my God, what if they see that? What if my unit sees that crap? I’m going to get thrown out.’

My girlfriend looked at me and said, Ray, ‘You were only on there for one second.’ I said, ‘Well, yeah, that’s true, but —’ and she said, ‘You know who you were. I knew who you were, but they’re not going to know who you were,’ and I went, ‘Oh, you got a point.’

But yeah, that was tough going through that, just living my whole life in the closet.”

 

 

When you were serving in the military, was there ever someone you met that you confided in, or did you have to keep it from everyone?

“I kept it from everyone. You just didn’t disclose stuff like that to everybody because you don’t know how they’re going to take it. What could have been lonely about it was not being able to put up pictures of my lady and stuff like that or talk about it.

It was kind of suffocating, but again, I was used to that. I went to college in the University of Colorado in Boulder where I started experimenting. That did happen before I joined the military. So even then, I didn’t talk about my lifestyle to everybody. I was discreet, in other words.”

Do you remember when you started to feel safe to be public about your identity?

“I never felt safe, and I still don’t feel safe. But I’m a beacon and an activist, and for that reason, I’m out there. I’m still discreet. There are still people who do not know. There are places that I go where I don’t disclose that information, but there’s more of a community now where I can go places where I feel safe. It’s not such a defining factor of my life.

I don’t feel safe because of the political climate, us [transgender people] getting drug into the political theater. I don’t feel safe about that at all, but trans men fly under the radar anyway. They don’t know. I’ll be in places and hear people talking crap and then look at me for agreement. I’m looking at them like, you idiot, I’m trans. But I don’t say that. So no, I don’t walk around with trans pasted on my forehead.

I’m just a man, Black man, who happens to be trans. So, it doesn’t define my life. It’s just part of my life, and where I need to, I come out. I’m public all over the place, such as my YouTube videos and my writing on Substack. I was part of the diversity training for interns at the VA, and I do a lot of work, a lot of these kinds of interviews, and more.”

Were you always tapped into activism throughout your life?

“A little bit, yes. I mean, I was out there protesting with the LGBTQ+ community in California. So, me and my lady would go around to different organizations and protest in the streets, except when it started getting hot [dangerous]. It was like, ‘Uh-oh, no.” If people start overturning cars, it’s time to go. But I’ve always been activist minded. I just didn’t get all the way involved until I began to transition. And that was nine years ago.”

What is it like living in South as a Black transgender veteran?

“Listen, I bought a home in 2022. I had a feeling because it’s halfway out in the country, and I said, ‘Oh, crap. Well, let me alert the VA [Veterans Affairs] that I’m coming, just in case.’ And the first thing that happened was they said, ‘We don’t deal with transgenders. We’re not going to treat you.’ And I was like, ‘What? I can’t believe you said that out loud. You know, it’s against the law of the VA for you to say that or do that.’

So, I went to the White House hotline, and I ended up being looped back around to the executives of the VA in this area. And they said, ‘Oh no, they must take you.’ So, they took me, but they started treating me like crap. Just this one lady kept calling me ‘the veteran’ when she was talking to me. ‘The veteran?’ What is that? You’re dehumanizing me. I have a name, and it’s Mr. Gibson to you.

She refused to call me my name. Then the appointments would get screwed up. They were mad that they were forced to deal with me. They were doing all this underhanded, passive-aggressive stuff. That was just two years ago, and I’m still fighting.

What do you wish that people who aren’t veterans knew?

“Well, definitely don’t delve into veterans’ PTSD about the military with them. Also, be welcoming. I’m telling you, part of the reason why so many soldiers and military personnel got screwed up by Vietnam is because they were spit on when they came back home. A lot of college students were anti-war, and it messed those guys up when they came back and had to not only suffer what they went through out there, but then the people here did not welcome them home.

Civilians need to understand it takes a different kind of person to be in the military, let alone go to a war. Don’t ask me why I ended up one of those people because I was not like-minded, but I respect the hell out of combat veterans and people respect me.

I’ll throw on a [military] hat and run out the door and I’ll be out somewhere forgetting what I’m wearing, and all sorts of strangers are coming up to me and shaking my hand. People appreciate us now. I love that. It does take a lot, whether you were deployed or not, to be in the military. They need to know they’re dealing with extraordinary human beings who put their life on the line for the freedoms of the people that people here enjoy. So don’t make them feel like they’re not Americans.”

This interview was edited for clarity and length.