The Riddle of Gender - Deborah Rudacille [158]
CONVERSATION WITH JOANNA CLARK
Joanna Clark served in the United States Navy for seventeen years, rising to the rank of chief petty officer. She was discharged early in her transition but later served for eighteen months as sergeant first class in the army, after informing her recruiter and superiors about her sex reassignment. When the army later charged that she had fraudulently enlisted, she fought the charges and was eventually granted an honorable discharge. After becoming an activist, she lobbied for the California law that permitted replacement birth certificates and wrote two books on transsexualism and the law. She helped establish the Transsexual Rights Committee of the Southern California American Civil Liberties Union and, after taking vows as an Episcopal nun (a move at first sanctioned but later repudiated by church officials), founded the first and largest AIDS and online HIV information service, AEGIS (AIDS Education Global Information System). I spoke to Clark in the mobile home she shares with her elderly father and the bank ofcomputers required to run AEGIS.
Q: Can we talk a little about your military Service?”
The navy discharged me in ’74 and I had my surgery in ‘75. Then in the last part of ‘75 an army recruiter came through the building and wanted to put posters up, and I said, “Sure you can put ‘em up,” and he says, “Why don’t you join the Reserves?” And I said, “I’d love to but I don’t think I’m eligible.” He said, “What do you mean?” And I said, “I was a chief petty officer in the navy, and the navy discharged me because of what I was going through.” He said, “What was that?” and I said, “I had sex reassignment.” And he says, “Well, it [sex reassignment] wouldn’t keep you from doing your job, would it?” and I said, “No,” and he said, “Why don’t you send me your D2-14 and your resume, and I’ll see what I can find out?” So I sent it. Well, Congress had gotten my records changed to show that I had served in the navy as a female (at my request) through the late Senator Phil Hart, who was chair of the Armed Services Committee and who my dad knew from when he was a city councilman. We were told later that when Senator Hart went to the navy and said, “I want the records changed and it’s been done in the past,” the navy’s argument was “Well, it’s never been done for a chief petty officer who had a long career of seventeen years in the military.” It had been done for people who had been in the service for three to four years.
Q: And why would that make a difference?
Status, I guess, and embarrassment for the navy that they allowed someone in the navy for that long. So Hart says that he wanted the records changed, and the navy said no. Hart, who was chair of the Senate Armed Forces Committee, said, “Well, you have an appropriations bill here for a new aircraft carrier. I’ll schedule hearings when you change the records.” Well, whether that’s true or not, or whether the person in his office just told my dad that to make him feel good, I don’t know. It made a good story.
Anyway, they changed my records, so when the army got my stuff, they said, “Fine, we can take you as long as you can pass the physical.” So I went out and took the physical and the army gynecologist did a pelvic on me and passed me. So I served in the Army Reserves for about six or seven months, and they liked my work and said, “How would you like to work