Cammermeyer To Speak During Gay Pride Week
Margarethe “Greta” Cammermeyer was fired from her job.
Awards, service in Vietnam, a 26-year military career all that made no difference five years ago to the Washington National Guard.
Cammermeyer was dismissed for one reason: She was gay.
“I felt as though everything I had given my life to was thrown away,” Cammermeyer said during a recent telephone interview. “Having to take off my uniform was like being stripped of my identity.”
She will speak in Spokane next week as part of Gay Pride Week and on behalf of Initiative 677, an effort to stop job discrimination in Washington state.
Volunteers are still gathering signatures to put the initiative on the November ballot. If passed by voters, I-677 would guarantee the same employment rights for all Washington residents, she said.
It would make it illegal for companies to dismiss employees based on sexual orientation. To qualify for the ballot, the initiative needs a total of 225,000 signatures by July 3.
“There’s nothing extreme about it,” said the 55-year-old. “What we’re asking for is the same rights. It’s an issue of basic fairness. … I know what it means to lose your job. I want to make sure that this doesn’t happen to others.”
Cammermeyer, who was reinstated in 1994, wrote about her pain and successful court challenge in “Serving in Silence,” a book published in 1995. Her story also was told in an NBC-TV movie produced by Barbra Streisand. Glenn Close played Cammermeyer in the film.
After 15 years of marriage to a state trooper, Cammermeyer tried to commit suicide in 1980. It was then that she confronted her own sexuality.
The Norway native left her husband and the five-bedroom home they built together. She received visitation rights to see her four sons.
One day, when she brought her boys home, her ex-husband started yelling “You dyke, faggot, queer,” right in front of their children.
Cammermeyer eventually overcame that feeling of alienation.
She went on to become a decorated colonel and chief nurse of the Washington National Guard, earned her doctorate in nursing science from the University of Washington, found her partner, Diane Divelbess.
She and her sons and grandchildren have a “normal” relationship, she said, “the stereotype of what family and love should be.”
Every year on Mother’s Day, she and Divelbess both receive cards from her children and grandchildren.
The years of turmoil after being fired from the military led Cammermeyer to champion “fair treatment for everyone.”
“We are all worthy,” she said.
In the past, people have been too frightened to openly acknowledge their homosexuality. In recent years, however, the atmosphere has become more open.
Ellen DeGeneres, for instance, recently came out on the ABC sitcom “Ellen.”
“We are seeing Ellen with all of the pain that she is going through,” Cammermeyer said. “She hasn’t changed. All she has done is be honest. With that honesty, all of a sudden people’s perceptions change.”
But I-677 isn’t just a “gay’ issue, she emphasized. It affects everyone, including straight people.
“Our children … also need to have role models for nondiscrimination, whether they are straight or gay,” Cammermeyer said. “They need to know that the world is a safe place.”
, DataTimes ILLUSTRATION: Color Photo
MEMO: This sidebar appeared with the story: Gay Pride Week schedule Gay Pride Week activities include: Breakfast with the Colonel - Col. Greta Cammermeyer will be the keynote speaker, 7:30 a.m. Wednesday at the Ridpath Hotel, 515 W. Sprague. Admission is $35. Call Hands Off Washington, 458-2741, for more information. Gay Pride Week at Spokane Falls Community College - Warren J. Blumenfield, editor of the “Journal of Gay, Lesbian and Bisexual Identity” will talk about homophobia, 11:30 a.m. Wednesday at SFCC’s Student Union Building. The lecture is free. Imperial Sovereign Court of Spokane - An evening of entertainment at Pumps II, 4 W. Main, 10 p.m. Saturday. Lesa Luders - author of “Lady God” will read from her book, 7 p.m. Monday, June 2, at Auntie’s Book Store, 402 W. Main. “Feed Your Face” - an all-you-can-eat spaghetti feed, sponsored by Spokane’s Odyssey Youth Group, 4 to 7 p.m. Wednesday, June 4, at the Unitarian Universalist Church, 4340 W. Fort George Wright Drive. The Rainbow Awards - awards presented to an individual and an organization for outstanding contributions to the gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgender community. No-host cocktails will be served at 7 p.m. Friday, June 6, at the Crescent Court, 707 W. Main. Cost is $15. Lake Coeur d’Alene Cruise - a two-hour trip around the lake, 6:30 p.m. Saturday, June, 7 at Lake Coeur d’Alene. Tickets are $15, Call 838-0085 for reservations. “Equality through Visibility” - the sixth annual Gay, Lesbian, Bisexual and Transgender Pride March through downtown Spokane at noon, Sunday, June 8. Participants should assemble at 11 a.m. in the Spokane Civic Theatre parking lot, 1020 N. Howard. Fourth annual Walk of Life - live music, food and craft fair, 9 a.m. Saturday, June 14, at Coeur d’Alene Park in Browne’s Addition. Call 455-8893 for more information.