There’s more to ‘Tell’: Margaret Witt ’86 on fighting homophobia and being tokenized
“I just really didn’t want to be identified as one label: and now I am.”
News flash: there were gay people at Pacific Lutheran University before there was a Center for Gender Equity, a Queer Ally Student Union, or any celebrations of a pride week. Major Margaret Witt, who will give the Meant to Live Lecture at 7 p.m. Thursday, Nov. 9, in the Scandinavian Cultural Center, is one of them.
Major Witt (known as “Margie”), who graduated from the PLU School of Nursing in 1986, was forcibly outed and subsequently dismissed while serving as an Air Force flight nurse. This was the era of Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell, when thousands of service members were dismissed because of their sexuality.
In response to her dismissal, Witt sued: and won. The court’s 2010 order to reinstate her delivered a nearly-fatal blow to Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell. (Congress, one year later, would finish the job.) Her incredible story is the subject of her aptly-named book, Tell, and lecture titled “Find Your Mission.”
Her queer experience differs from mine. I came out at PLU with joyfully little fanfare: I announced my queer identity, and my friends said “Great, but… Duh?” and we moved on.
The first time Margie heard the words “Major Witt is gay,” it was from her attorney’s mouth in front of the press.
Witt has been interviewed by The Seattle Times, The New York Times, and has even appeared on Rachel Maddow — that’s just to name a few. The Matrix is not those esteemed publications; it’s an “intensely experimental” project, curious about the “process” of social justice and not just its outcomes.
That’s why, rather than ask her about the story she’s retold countless times, I wanted to start with our shared experience: here, in Parkland, queer at PLU. The conversation that left me shocked, reflective, and hopeful, is reproduced below, lightly edited for brevity and clarity.
MATTHEW SALZANO, The Matrix: So you’re coming to PLU on Nov. 9 — What does it feel like to be coming back?
MAJOR MARGARET WITT: I always had that part of me that didn’t feel like I was welcome as me. So it really is an honor to come back.
It sounds so different. We were so compartmentalized and so isolated, you know? Even on the softball team: there was a group of us that knew about each other and by the end of my senior year we were kind of divided.
You were at PLU from 1982–1986. What was it like to be gay — were you out of the closet?
No, haha. NOOoooo. I dated men and women but no, nobody was out. It was not cool to be gay, and I was still very closeted. It was a real “don’t ask, don’t tell” kind of thing, and being on a Lutheran campus I think it kept you more closeted. It was pretty conservative.
How did you find other queer people on campus without referring to yourself with a label? How did you meet them and manage to keep it all secret?
You know, you kind of have your covert conversations and meet people through other people. Once we made friends with somebody, then they kinda knew somebody, and we would have a group of friends on campus.
When I was probably just starting nursing school, there was somebody in the class above me: she and her girlfriend showed up at my dorm room door one day and wanted me to be a part of an organization! (laughs) That was a surprise, they knocked on my door and wanted me to be in a support group. So I don’t think it was a big secret anywhere that (laughs) that I was dating women.
And they weren’t a part of some queer union, group right? It was that, with other queer people, your sexuality was an open secret.
Yeah. We were our own community.
Was that a source of strength for you? Or was the furtiveness painful?
No, it was a big support. In the military, it was the same sort of thing. That’s the way you kind of moved through society. That was the culture.
You had a secret society… a secret, second family that really knew you.
When people ask what your sexual identity is, how do you refer to yourself?
I prefer gay.
Was that a political choice or was it just a term that came up?
Five minutes before my press conference before announcing my case, and my lawyer said: “How do you want to be referred to? Lesbian, gay?”
I didn’t want my sexuality to define me. I am more than that. I said “How about Norwegian or Lutheran?”
So he went right out there and the first words out of his mouth were “Major Witt is gay” and I about fell to my knees. I had never heard it before, and that was played over and over again in the news stories that day.
You had never heard anyone say “Major Witt is gay” before that news conference?
No… it was a real blow. I had never said the words — you know, because you just didn’t. I couldn’t and you just didn’t.
In Margie Witt’s perfect world, would we shed identity labels and just be ourselves?
I mean wouldn’t that be nice? I mean, heterosexual people don’t walk around saying ‘well, I’m heterosexual.’ I think it’s unfair that we’ve had to do that just to be accepted as human beings. But! it’s important also that we own that pride. So it’s a real dichotomy for me.
In contrast to being in the closet at PLU, you’re now known for your legendary court case that helped dismantle Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell. Meanwhile, you mentioned earlier how you didn’t want the term “gay” to define you.
This reminds me a lot of the tensions in contemporary activism about “identity politics,” whether the proliferation of identity terms helps people define themselves or if it is ultimately unproductive for social change.
I think power lies in self acceptance, and having that recognized not only within yourself but having someone else accept that. It’s the power of the acceptance of who you are. Like the definition of queer is different, but I always focused on more of the sameness of all of us, so it’s interesting that we want to define ourselves so much and yet the importance for me was to show everyone how much we’re alike.
I just really didn’t want to be identified as one label: and now I am. It’s kind of one reason why I wrote Tell. I wanted the story to come out because I’m more than a headline. “Lesbian flight nurse fights don’t ask don’t tell.” There’s more to that story! There’s more to the person. More than just a headline.
Did you interact with PLU at all during your case?
Right at the beginning of my case, I was up speaking for the ACLU at the University of Washington. And there was a PLU psych-nursing professor there that came up to me and really wanted to give me support from Nursing at PLU.
She was really upset that the nursing department as a whole would not put out a statement to back me. She felt so strongly about it that she actually came all the way up to UW to say ‘I support you.’ She wasn’t even there — she was on sabbatical — when I actually had the class. She didn’t know me.
I don’t want to diss the nursing program, but that support of that one professor coming from PLU to say ‘I support you’ meant a lot. But I also felt that distance from my own program and my alma mater.
I think PLU is getting better, as an institution, at recognizing it hasn’t always had positions on the ‘right side of history.’
Yeah, they weren’t willing to get behind me. But I wasn’t expecting an endorsement from anybody: I graduated from Eastern and Temple, too.
One thing that I have found really encouraging from talking with you, Margie, is that even when it seems like an institution is just backwards, there is always a few people who endure and say: “But hold on. This is important.”
Yes, that’s a great point. And it’s those people who make a difference, those people who are willing to stand up and stick their necks out. That really made a difference for me: I will always remember that nursing professor (but I wish I could remember her name).
Major Margaret “Margie” Witt will give the PLU Wild Hope Center for Vocation: Meant to Live Lecture at 7 p.m. Thursday, Nov. 9, in the Scandinavian Cultural Center. It is free and open to the public.
