A younger veteran whom I mentored calls me “Madam Geezer.” It’s meant affectionately, recognizing my “old salt” perspective. It also acknowledges that I have lots of sea stories, many starting “Back in my day…” or “Back when I was in the fleet…”
In the mid-1970s, coming home from a family gathering in Brooklyn, I saw a destroyer sailing into New York harbor. It was a clear, crisp fall day; the water was like glass. The ship was steaming at speed with a large white bow wave and the national ensign stiff in the breeze. I turned to my dad and said, “I want to be part of that.”
From that moment on, I wanted to become a naval officer. I wanted to serve and be part of something bigger than myself. When the time came for college, I had only one school in mind: the Naval Academy. (My “safety” school was the Coast Guard Academy.)
I was inducted into Annapolis on July 7, 1981. Since then I’ve been a midshipman, a commissioned officer and a veteran. The Navy was my calling, and being a naval officer was my full identity. Or so I thought at the time.
While serving in the fleet, I was also waging an internal battle to better understand my gender identity — that deep-rooted sense of who we are in terms of gender.
In the 1980s, the ignorance and animus surrounding gay or transgender people pervaded military policy and attitudes. Asking for help from a therapist to understand what I was experiencing would have immediately ended my career, with the likely consequence of being discharged with a negative characterization, simply for accepting another facet of myself.
By the summer of 1990, I was in the naval reserve when Desert Shield began. I felt my place was with the fleet because I was one of the few officers who had been involved in mine countermeasures in the Persian Gulf. So I volunteered to return to active duty. In 1991, I went to the Gulf to serve in the last mine countermeasures combat operations.
Coming home that fall, I knew I had to deal with accepting my gender identity once and for all, but I did not want to leave the Navy I loved. The Bureau of Personnel offered me the opportunity to return to active duty. When I got that letter, I spent a week going to the beach each day. I would sit in the dunes and watch the Navy ships come and go into Charleston Harbor, tearing myself apart. My heart was breaking, knowing that I had to decide between living authentically as I was/am and continuing to serve in the Navy.
It was a decision forced on me. It is the same decision being forced on the current generation of transgender service members. There was/is nothing “voluntary” about having to sacrifice childhood dreams and a military career solely to appease other people’s bigotry.
Although leaving the Navy in 1991 was the right decision for my long-term well-being, it was the hardest, most traumatic decision I have ever had to make.
I was not ready psychologically or emotionally for my career to suddenly end. I lost my sense of purpose and calling. I felt lost living in a civilian world where I no longer belonged. I did not care if I lived or died. I have come to understand that these are the symptoms of both post-traumatic and transition stress. Back then, I just sucked it up.
My poorly chosen coping mechanism was to let myself get out of shape. I stopped exercising and playing sports. I ate junk food and stopped paying attention to nutrition. I could then pretend the reason I wasn’t serving was that I didn’t meet the physical readiness standards, not that the military had rejected a core part of my identity. If I had continued to meet the standards, the pain of knowing I couldn’t serve — only because of policies that had nothing to do with my character or ability — would have been too much to bear.
Like other veterans of my generation, I was infected with the nonsensical idea that asking for help was a sign of weakness. It would take me 27 years to finally permit myself to talk to a therapist to deal with the loss, anger, pain, injustice and grief. I’m better, but I’m still a work in progress.
I spent decades feeling I no longer had a purpose, that I had somehow failed — even though the reality was the Navy and our country had failed me. I can get frustrated to the point of rage over simple things, like having my burger incorrectly cooked, or being irritated by people who lack the socialization that I have as a veteran. I often withdraw from interacting with people outside of my close friends and partner. A good night’s sleep is one without a Navy dream; I haven’t had many good nights of sleep in the past 30 years.
I bought into the hype about being a Naval Academy graduate: superhuman, held to an unrealistic standard of perfectionism (“4.0 or f—ed up”) and immune to feelings. That was crap.
In my post-Navy life, I’ve been a successful lawyer and a nurse. But I had spent years calling the law and nursing lemonade, as in “when life gives you lemons, make lemonade.” My achievements and accolades in the civilian world were measured against what I had lost in leaving the Navy: the loss of opportunity to become a senior officer, to command at sea, to earn more, to obtain superior medals/awards and to retire with a military pension. Any civilian success was merely a consolation prize.
I first went to nursing school in 1992 (after having two civilian job offers rescinded because of my gender identity) to find a new purpose. I started my career in emergency nursing, specializing in trauma resuscitation. I enjoyed the adrenaline of the trauma bay, playing for life-and-death stakes and having to perform in that pressurized environment. After a couple of years, I had compassion burnout as well as a sense of not doing enough, of not being heard as a nurse, of not meeting the expectations that others had of me as a Naval Academy grad.
I then went to law school, where I was involved in the efforts to repeal the don’t ask, don’t tell law. I was working on the issue in Washington, D.C., when the country was attacked on Sept. 11, 2001. I had the same emotions as everyone — shock, grief, anger — but also the added feelings of rejection, betrayal and abandonment. Our country was under attack, and I had no battle station. On that day, I had three ways that I could contribute to the mission: I was a combat-tested line officer; I was an expert trauma nurse; and I had passed the bar and was qualified to be a judge advocate.
None of that mattered. My country, my Navy, did not want my service simply because of who I was. Those feelings fueled my desire to ensure that anyone who is qualified and willing to serve can do so and would never have to feel what I felt that day. I became one of the leaders in the efforts to repeal DADT and change the regulations to permit transgender military service. For that leadership, the 75th secretary of the Navy, Ray Mabus, named me as the co-sponsor of the USNS Harvey Milk (T-AO 206). I christened the ship in November 2021 in San Diego.
Every Navy ship has one or more sponsors. Most of the duties are ceremonial, like breaking a bottle of sparkling wine on the bow when the ship is christened. Beyond the ceremonies, sponsors are charged with infusing the command with their spirit and character as well as providing moral support to their ship’s crews for the length of the vessel’s operational life. It’s a lifelong relationship.
Being named as the sponsor of a ship is a special honor. For me, being the sponsor of a ship named for Harvey Milk was even more of an honor. I felt proud to be associated with his legacy. Harvey Milk, an iconic champion of civil rights for LGBTQ+ people and others, was assassinated in 1978 in part because of his work. He was also an officer whose own career in the Navy was terminated due to the anti-gay prejudice that existed when he served in the 1950s.
I never envisioned sponsoring a U.S. Navy ship when I graduated from Annapolis. When Secretary Mabus asked me, it was a no-brainer: an opportunity to reconnect with the fleet, a new way to serve and be part of the Navy again. At the naming ceremony in August 2016, I was humbled to be thanked for keeping the faith with the Navy despite the loss of my naval career.
I saw my work to increase inclusion for LGBTQ+ people in the military as simply doing my duty to uphold my oath. I also felt undeserving of the honor. When a naval aide handed me a ship’s ball cap with the oak leaves of a flag officer on the bill, I tried to hand it back, saying, “I don’t rate this.” The lieutenant commander looked me in the eye and stated, “Yes, ma’am, you do.”
I felt joy, pride and vindication when I christened the ship in November 2021 at the General Dynamics NASSCO in San Diego. After breaking the bottle on the bow, I stood on the platform with Secretary of the Navy Carlos Del Toro and watched the ship slide into the water to the sounds of “Anchors Aweigh.” I was proud to be part of the Navy again.
When the ship became operational, I had the opportunity to sail with it for a few days. It took me 33 years to get back to sea with the Navy. But when I did, I immediately felt like I was back home; back where I always belonged — on a ship and underway.
As I write, the current Secretary of Defense, with the willing support of the Secretary of the Navy, has renamed my ship. This is part of the broader effort to impose worldviews grounded in bigotry and ignorance that exclude people who don’t fit into the administration’s view of our country. I am disheartened by the lack of moral courage on the part of many of our leaders, in uniform, in politics, in the media, to stand up to these assaults on our democracy and fundamental values.
They think renaming a ship out of loathing toward LGBTQ+ people will discredit our contributions, but it only fuels my resolve to be firm in my defiant defense of the true ideals of our country. I hope my story inspires others to find their own courage and, despite the understandable fear of our times, to be committed to doing what is right.
I have come to realize that service to country is not defined by wearing a uniform. My greatest service to my country and my Navy happened after I hung up my uniform. I have had a much greater positive impact on the Navy than I likely ever would have had if I stayed in uniform for a 30-year career.
Navy, nurse, lawyer. I used to joke that it’s a career path of an unfocused adulthood. I used to say that I had to sacrifice my calling when I left the Navy. I don’t do either anymore. It’s taken a while to frame properly, but my career path has always been one of service focused on helping others and making that “more perfect union” a reality. I didn’t give up my calling in leaving the Navy; I simply gave up a particular wardrobe.
When I look in the mirror, I see a “brassy, old broad from Jersey City,” a battle-ax, for better or worse. I also see a proud Navy veteran. I may live in the civilian world, but I will never again be a civilian. I see the face of someone who has lived up to the traditions of the naval service and tries daily to fulfill their oath. I like the image I see.
Paula M. Neira is a Navy veteran, a nurse and a lawyer. After serving in Desert Storm, including in mine warfare combat operations, she began careers in both nursing and the law. She helped lead the efforts to repeal the “don’t ask, don’t tell” policy and change regulations to allow for transgender military service in 2016. In recognition of her leadership in advancing LGBTQ+ inclusion in the Armed Forces and in healthcare, she was the first U.S. Service Academy graduate to be inducted as a Fellow of the American Academy of Nursing. As the sponsor of the USNS Harvey Milk, she christened the ship in 2021 in San Diego.
