Stories from the Lavender Names Project

Photo courtesy of the Lavender Names Project

To extend the reach of this important story, the Fellow Travelers tour consortium is partnering with the American LGBTQ+ Museum on the Lavender Names Project, a nationwide, grassroots archival research and community outreach initiative that will share the stories of LGBTQ+ community members who were fired or discriminated against by local and federal governments. Here are a few of their stories.

Amber Ferenz

I was discharged from the US Army in February of 2001 under DADT [Don't Ask, Don't Tell] at Hunter Army Airfield. Before my discharge, I won Soldier of the Quarter at Brigade level, and was serving in a MI unit as an Arabic linguist. During the competition, I ran two terrifying miles on feet that I could not feel because of the cold. I was secretly living with my girlfriend off base, and I knew it was only a matter of time before someone figured me out. One afternoon I was sitting at the base promotion office, too tired to get out of the car.  I was watching the dust move in the watery sunlight when the dust stopped moving, and I heard a voice: “If you want to continue to be a good person, you have to get out, and you have to do it now. You don’t have much time.” Then the dust started moving again, and the sky was still there. I found that in that timeless moment I had quit, and just needed to find the door. I found it during Sergeant School, where I outed myself to the Commandant and First Sergeant. They sent me home after trying to get me to go back in the closet and unsay what I had said, and I went through all of the ritual humiliation a quick month-long queer outprocessing can offer. I hit the Appalachian Trail with my girlfriend, and we hiked for a few months until I knew I was going back into classical music. 

Leon Ingall

I never met my cousin Leon Ingall and Warren Kronemeyer, his partner of 58 years. Twenty years after their deaths, I learned that Warren required extra support as the primary caregiver of Leon who was suffering from Alzheimer’s. Their social worker Janet asked why Leon wasn’t receiving support from the VA. Warren confessed that Leon had no health benefits. Leon was discharged from the military without honor because he was homosexual. I was able to procure Leon’s Section 8 discharge papers from the National Archives. Despite his skills as an intelligence observer and translation, he was deemed mentally unfit for service. Warren and Leon’s social worker urged them to have a Vermont civil union in 2001. They were reluctant to do so as gay gentlemen of a certain era, but they realized that this was the only possibility of receiving the care they needed.

Story shared by Andrew Ingall

Steve Marose

In 1988 after college, I joined the Air Force as an aircraft maintenance officer. This was pre Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell, and gay men and women were being drummed out of the military as unfit for service. As my sexual identity blossomed, I battled with how to live the covert double life that was required of LGBTQ military members at that time.

Meanwhile I was distinguishing myself as a top officer—honor graduate from Aircraft Maintenance Officer training, branch of the year, vice president of the Company Grade Officers Council. It all came crashing down in 1990, when an investigation into an enlisted friend led to my being court martialed for 3 counts of consensual sodomy and 2 counts of conduct unbecoming an officer (for going to an off-limits gay bar and for letting an enlisted guy stay at my apartment for a short period). I was facing 17 years in prison, and even though the prosecutor publicly commented that I should just be discharged, I was sentenced to 2 years at Fort Leavenworth. 

After my release, old friends told me that a light had gone out in me during that time. But you know what? Another had been ignited because I emerged as a militantly out gay man. Never again would I deny who I was—for any company, for any person, not for a single second. Over the next couple decades, as I became more active in the gay rights movement, I witnessed a sea change in attitudes, not only in the military but in the country as a whole. So much progress has been made for LGBTQ Americans. We can serve our country openly and proudly, marry the ones we love, and live our lives unabashedly true to ourselves. My ex-husband is now married to an openly gay Commander in the Navy. In so many ways, it got better. 

In the follow up piece to my CBS interview in 2023, it was reported that the Pentagon was going to finally start looking into discharges for sexual orientation during Don't Ask, Don't Tell, and then look back before that. The CBS reporter insisted my case played a huge role in that. In the summer of 2024, the Biden White House announced they would pardon thousands of veterans who were convicted under Article 125 purely based on their sexual orientation. I was one of only a handful of veterans who even applied due to the stringent criteria, and 4 US representatives wrote a letter to the pardon chief on my behalf demanding I be fully pardoned. I also applied for a discharge upgrade through the Air Force review board, applied for veterans benefits, and for a NEXUS pass to be able to travel to Canada despite my felony charges (which Canada promptly approved on their end). The decisions on all my applications were not made until just after the change in administrations, and other than receiving ONE pardon, all were denied. 

There’s hope though—when my discharge upgrade review was finalized in late 2025, the original denial was overturned and I am now an honorably discharged veteran. I’m continuing to appeal the rest. No matter the outcome, I live my life without shame.

Frank Kameny

Frank Kameny served in World War II and later worked at the US Army Map Service after earning his Harvard PhD in astronomy. Soon after, he was questioned about his sexual orientation, refused to answer, and was fired—then banned from all future government work. He fought back, becoming the first person to pursue a sexual orientation civil rights case in U.S. courts.

Kameny went on to become the first openly gay candidate for Congress. His activism helped remove homosexuality from the list of psychiatric disorders in 1973, led to the repeal of D.C.’s sodomy laws in 1993, and gave us the rallying cry “Gay is Good.”

Bree Fram

Bree Fram is an astronautical engineer, public policy expert, author, speaker, and retired US Space Force colonel. She was forced to retire from the military at the end of 2025 due to Presidential policy regarding transgender people. In her final assignment she was stationed at the Pentagon where she developed the requirements for future Space Force capabilities. Bree came out publicly as transgender on the day the transgender ban in the military was dropped in 2016. She transitioned while in a command position and served through the re-imposition of a transgender ban from 2019–2021. At her dismissal, she was the highest ranking out transgender officer in the military and she was the first, and only, out transgender officer selected for and promoted to the grade of O-6.

Prior to recommissioning into the Space Force in 2021, Bree served 18 years in a wide variety of Air Force positions including a Research and Development command position and an oversight role for all Air Force security cooperation activity with Iraq. In earlier assignments, Bree served in the Air Force Directorate of Strategic Plans, as a Legislative Fellow at the US Capitol on the staff of Congresswoman Madeleine Bordallo, several tours as a program manager for satellite and technology programs, and deployed to Qatar and Iraq as part of Operation Iraqi Freedom.

Bree has appeared on national and international media, including ABC and NBC Nightly News, France 24, BBC, PBS News Hour, and NPR. Her writing has been featured in the New York Times, Washington Post, Defense One, Military Times, Inkstick, and LGBTQ Nation.

Bree recently announced that she is running for Congress in Virginia.

Fellow Travelers is on stage February 21–March 1, 2026 at McCaw Hall. Learn more and buy tickets at seattleopera.org/fellowtravelers.

Are you a member of the LGBTQ+ community who has been impacted by employment discrimination by the government? The Lavender Names Project wants to share your story. Your photo will be included in a visual archive that will appear on stage at the end of each performance. Learn more and submit at americanlgbtqmuseum.org/lavender-names-project.