A member of New Zealand’s Defence Force will join others from around the world in sharing her story at a US gathering looking at perspectives on transgender military service from around the world. The American Civil Liberties Union is hosting the conference in Washington DC on Monday. Sergeant Lucy Jordan from the Royal New Zealand Air Force will join cohorts from Canada, Sweden and Australia in sharing her experiences. She joined the RNZAF in 1996 as an Armament Mechanic and worked on Skyhawks before becoming a photographer, based in Ohakea, in 1997. Her 18-year career has included a UN deployment to East Timor, RNZAF exchange postings to the UK and Australia, along with numerous helicopter and air-trainer flights. Sergeant Jordan was the first member of the New Zealand Defence Force to transition “in uniform”, which she began in 2010 with the full support of her bosses, colleagues and the Ohakea base community. She is a cricketer who plays for the Ohakea and RNZAF Women's teams and is a committee member of Overwatch, the NZDF peer support network for LGBTIQ personnel. Also representing New Zealand at the conference will be another Overwatch member, Graeme Field, who works in human resources. He will be part of a panel discussing ‘lessons learned and best practices’, and will be able to offer some insight into the NZDF which was ranked the world’s most inclusive in a new index earlier this year.
Credit: GayNZ.com Daily News staff
First published: Wednesday, 15th October 2014 - 1:42pm